Why Lady Gaga Beat a Trademark Injunction Over “Mayhem”

We previously covered the trademark lawsuit filed by Lost International against Lady Gaga over her use of “Mayhem” in connection with her album, tour, and related merchandise. Now the court has ruled, denying Lost’s motion for a preliminary injunction. In this episode of The Briefing, Weintraub Tobin partners Scott Hervey and Tara Sattler break down the court’s order and what it signals about the Rogers test after the Supreme Court’s Jack Daniel’s decision.

In this episode, they cover:

• Why the court applied the Rogers test instead of the traditional Sleekcraft likelihood of confusion analysis
• How the court treated tour merchandise tied to an expressive work under Ninth Circuit precedent
• What “artistic relevance” means and why that prong was easily met here
• Why “use of the mark alone” was not enough to show the use was explicitly misleading
• How this ruling fits into the broader post Jack Daniel’s landscape, including recent Ninth Circuit developments

Tune in for a clear look at where trademark law meets tour merchandising and First Amendment protections.