Earlier this month Madonna and Macy’s launched the Material Girl juniors clothing line and today we learn that Maddy has been slapped with a lawsuit that claims she does NOT have the rights to market and sell a line of clothing under that moniker. A company called LA Triumph alleges that they have been selling a similar clothing line under the name Material Girl since 1997 … and they are demanding compensation for the product name infringement:
Madonna is being sued over the rights to use the “Material Girl” name for the trendy juniors clothing line that she designed with daughter Lourdes. Apparel manufacturer LA Triumph slapped the superstar with a lawsuit Thursday, claiming that it had been marketing clothes under the “Material Girl” brand since 1997. “Our client and its predecessor have been continually selling similar clothes in similar retail outlets at similar price points under their Material Girl brand since at least 1997 and Madonna and her newfound company do not have the right to trade in the same space under this brand,” said an attorney for the company in a statement, alleging that their client faces “a risk of being subsumed by Madonna’s profile, obvious worldwide notoriety” and massive marketing campaign. Madonna’s much-buzzed-about Material Girl collection, fronted by Gossip Girl star Taylor Momsen, launched at Macy’s earlier this month. Madonna has not yet commented.
Ouch! According to TMZ, LA Triumph is suing for all the profits Madonna has made thus far from selling her Material Girl clothing line. In cases like this, I would tend to think that Madonna would come out on top … but considering this other company has been selling clothes under the Material Girl name for over 10 years, I think they’ve got a really good case. My guess is that Madonna will find a way to settle with LA Triumph so that she will be able to market and sell her wares. On the other hand, Madonna‘s song Material Girl predates LA Triumph‘s Material Girl line by over 10 years as well … I wonder if that gives Maddy the upper hand. I guess we’ll have to wait and see … but my money is always on Madonna for the win.
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you would think – that the business woman Madonna is that she would have done a name search before she decided what to name her clothing line. Everyone setting up a new business has to do it…they probably just want some publicity seeing as no one has really heard of their line…
If LA Triumph did not trademark the name, they more than likely have no claim.
She didn’t think to copyright “Material Girl” way back in the 80s when that’s what Everyone was calling her? I thought she was a smart businessperson.
That being said, I hope she counter sues and wins. It would suck for that company to capitalize on her name Twice.
The oldest valid trademark in the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) is from 2005. So yeah, they probably have a case considering publishing a song doesn’t constitute a trademark.
Just because she sung the song doesn’t mean she has ANY right over the name “Material Girl”. It was written by Peter Brown and Roberta Rans, she just provided the vocals for the song. She should have done her research (or paid people to do it for her) before she launched the whole line.
My money is on Madonna.
Material Girl was a song, so that has nothing to do with selling clothes. If LA Triumph has rights to the name in the clothing sales category, then they would have a case, since Madonna is using the same name to sell her line. However, I can’t believe Madonna’s lawyers wouldn’t have checked this out first.
Material Girl, the name, the song, whatever, will ALWAYS be linked to Madonna. It’s like someone naming a religious book Like A Prayer or someone naming a line of candles Ray of Light or someone doing a safe sex brochure and calling it Like A Virgin. SHE made all of those phrases iconic, which is what I’m sure the “original” Material Girls line was going for….making money off of a well known song and equating it to a brand of their own and profiting from a universally known phrase that has been linked to Madonna as far back as 1985 all the way up to today.Iif those people claim they didn’t base their business name off a Madonna song, they need to get real.
^ that is really not enough to make a legal argument.
Madonna is brilliant as usual. She new this would happen – do you know how many tabloids and newspapers are runnin this story ? 100′s perhaps 1000′s. As of today everbody on the planet no knows about the “Material Girl” clothing line.
I would guess this was a ploy between LA triumph and Madonna to have the media go wild on this – and it worked.
Hew Lawyers did a name search and this was the chosen path.
You have to hand it to her – dumb as fox : )
oops .. now* knows
and…. running*
Spell check please LOL
Her* Lawyers…… sheesh having issues today LOL
Agreed she should have looked more, but I also thought Lourdes had the clothesline, didn’t even see her name in the add. Heck, I still own orginal 1983-1985 clothes and black rubber bracelets to boot.