Lady Gaga has won a court ruling dismissing a lawsuit filed by Lost Surfboards, which claimed her Mayhem album infringed the company’s trademarks. Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled on August 18 that the case failed to meet legal standards for trademark infringement in expressive works.
Lost Surfboards, which has sold Mayhem-branded surfboards since the 1980s, argued that Gaga’s album name and stylized red logo created consumer confusion and represented a “blatant disregard” of its trademark rights.
The judge applied the so-called Rogers test, a longstanding precedent that allows trademark owners to sue only if a name’s use in creative works is completely irrelevant or explicitly misleading. “Expressive works are treated differently from other covered works,” Judge Olguin wrote, noting that album names “implicate the First Amendment right of freedom of speech” and that consumers were unlikely to confuse an album with a product endorsement.
Gaga’s legal team argued that Lost had failed to identify “a single confused consumer” linking Mayhem to the surfboard brand despite months of record sales and touring. The ruling echoed an earlier December decision in which the same judge refused to issue Lost an injunction blocking Gaga from using the name.
The decision follows decades of U.S. court precedent protecting creators’ use of trademarks in books, films and music. In 2002, a federal appeals court dismissed Mattel’s lawsuit against Aqua over the song “Barbie Girl” on similar grounds. Lost Surfboards may appeal the ruling to a federal appeals court.
Source: Billboard
