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Goldenvoice sues Urban Outfitters over Coachella-branded garb

By | Published on Thursday 16 March 2017

Coachella

Sorry Coachella, try as hard you like, your new trademark litigation ain’t going to top Deadmau5’s marvellous legal battle over the name of his cat. Nice try, but the winner of pop trademark battle of the year has already been decided.

However, in its bid for the runner up position in that much coveted award, AEG’s Goldenvoice is suing retailer Urban Outfitters for selling clothes that use its most famous festival brand, that being good old ‘Coachella’, without permission.

In the words of the lawsuit filed this week, “trading on the goodwill and fame of plaintiffs’ Coachella marks, [the] defendants, who are not authorised or affiliated in any way with plaintiffs, [have used] one or more of the Coachella marks in connection with COACHELLA branded apparel”.

Don’t be thinking that’s it though. Oh no, there’s an SEO element to all this too. “Defendants also use one or more of the Coachella marks as a ‘keyword’ to trigger defendants’ online advertising”, the lawsuit adds. “And within the meta-data on defendants’ own websites, to misdirect consumers searching for plaintiffs and plaintiff’s Coachella marks to defendants website which sells defendants’ authorised apparel”.

Nice try with the metadata angle Goldenvoice, but no cat, no prize. Good luck with the lawsuit though.



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