Decisions · 88466264
In re Lizzo LLC
Serial No. 88466264 · Decided 2023-02-02 · Other
What happened
The Board reversed the failure-to-function refusal of 100% THAT BITCH for Lizzo LLC’s shirts, jackets, headwear and other clothing, finding that consumers would perceive the phrase - which the singer Lizzo popularized as a lyric of her hit song ‘Truth Hurts’ - as associated with Lizzo rather than as a commonplace expression widely used by many different sources.
The marks
Applicant
100% THAT BITCH (standard characters)
Clothing, namely, shirts, jackets, jerseys, beanies, baseball hats, headwear, shorts, tank tops, sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts, hooded sweatshirts, hooded shirts, bandannas, wristbands as clothing, headbands, shoes and sleepwear (International Class 25)
Why this decision is significant
Precedential reversal of a commonplace-expression failure-to-function refusal, holding that a phrase a famous artist popularized as a song lyric can function as a mark where most third-party uses reference the artist and no use predates her popularization. It is a leading authority for registering celebrity catchphrases and lyric-derived marks and for the principle that lyrics are attributed to the performing artist rather than the songwriter.
Research significance is Trademark Valet's editorial rating of how useful a decision is to practitioners. It is not a statement of precedential weight — that is the separate Precedential field, which comes from the Board.
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The original record
Read the opinion and every filing on the Board's own docket. The summary above is our paraphrase, not a quotation from the opinion. The opinion is the authority.
Who checked this
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Provenance — Written from the opinion; research-significance tier confirmed.
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