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Longstanding US trademark dispute over ‘The Commodores’ spills over to UK

By Melissa Ritti ( March 28, 2025, 13:43 GMT | Insight) -- The bitter trademark feud between Thomas McClary and his former band The Commodores played out for over a decade in US courts, spawning two trials in Florida and eight separate appearances before the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, alone. The UK Intellectual Property Office has now entered the fray, rejecting a bid by McClary and his company First Avenue Entertainment to register "The Commodores" there. While stopping short of endorsing a view that registration to prevent trademark use by another is per se bad faith, an examiner with the office said McClary failed to rebut the band’s prima facie evidence of the same.The music group The Commodores has successfully blocked a former member from registering ‘The Commodores’ in the UK....

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