Country music stars, band Lady Antebellum decided to change their name due to negative connotations but landed them in trade mark dispute hot water.
The band announced that they were going to change their name to Lady A to get over the slavery connections related to their initial name, however they weren’t the first Lady A on the block.
Blues singer Anita White who has been performing at Lady A since the 80’s took action against the band for using her name. She took aim at the band for trying to ‘erase her’ and not contacting her to discuss the name change beforehand.
This backfired as it was the band who took the claim to court as they alleged White tried to claim $10 million for consenting to the name change. This was countered with a claim for trade mark infringement.
It seemed that this was going to cause a big storm playing out in court, however it seems the two parties have managed to reach a compromise and settled the matter. It is not known the details of the settlement but a motion has been filed with the court to dismiss the formal claims and therefore it must be enough to resolve the issue at all.
