Beyoncé Wins ”Blue Ivy Carter” Trademark Application Battle

Despite the efforts of Massachusetts wedding planner Veronica Morales to stop Beyoncé from securing trademarking rights to her daughter Blue Ivy Carter name, The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board sided with the 38-year-old singer. A week ago, Beyoncé acquired intellectual property rights to her eldest child’s name, preventing others from profiting from it.

The ongoing trademark battle had gone on for years. Since Blue Ivy’s birth in 2012, Beyoncé has filed several applications to prevent people from profiting from her daughter’s name. Still, the problem was with Morales, who created her business “Blue Ivy Events” before Blue Ivy was born.

The same year that Blue Ivy was born, Morales had received a trademark registration from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the mark “Blue Ivy” for her company, according to Law and Crime. Because of that registration, Morales filed a “notion of opposition” to the board, citing that the “Countdown” singer should not have the right to trademark her daughter’s name because it could lead to confusion between her company and the singer’s daughter.

To Morales claims of possible confusion, Beyoncé responded via documents, stating that consumers are not likely to be perplexed between “a boutique wedding event planning business and Blue Ivy Carter, the daughter of two of the most famous performers in the world.”

Morales countered Beyoncé’s statement with claims that the singer and her husband rapper Sean “Jay-Z” Carter have no intention of using their eldest child’s name for business, but only to prevent others from doing so. According to Law and Crime, such acts are not allowed under the trademark law.

Adding to her case, Morales mentioned an interview Jay-Z did in 2013 with Vanity Fair, where he opened up about why he and his wife were trying to gain rights to their daughter’s name.

“People wanted to make products based on our child’s name, and you don’t want anybody trying to benefit off your baby’s name,” he said. “It wasn’t for us to do anything; as you see, we haven’t done anything. First of all, it’s a child, and it bothers me when there’s no [boundaries].”

He continued:

“I come from the streets, and even in the most atrocious sh*t we were doing, we had lines: no kids, no mothers— there was respect there. But [now] there’s no boundaries. For somebody to say, This person had a kid—I’m gonna make a f*ckin’ stroller with that kid’s name. It’s, like, where’s the humanity?”

The board dismissed both of Morales’s claims, giving Beyoncé the trademark on July 6. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Although her company and “Blue Ivy Carter” are alike, the board did not believe that there was enough evidence to believe that the public would confuse the two.