Beyoncé and husband, Jay-Z are back in court for the umpteenth time to contest ownership of their daughter’s name, Blue Ivy.
When the couple announced their choice of the name for their first child, not everybody was happy. Foremost was Veronica Morales, a wedding planner with a business bearing the same name. She cried, “copy cat!” but the celebrity couple went ahead to name their child, why not?
In a bid to protect Blue’s name from bring public merchandise, Beyoncé and Jay-Z filed a motion to trademark rights to the name. However, Morales filed a complaint against that motion, effectively blocking their trademarking efforts.
In a chat with Vanity Fair, Jay-Z explained their rationale for wanting to trademark the name. He said; “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,” Jay told the publication back in 2013. “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]. I come from the streets, and even in the most atrocious shit 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 fuckin’ stroller with that kid’s name. It’s, like, where’s the humanity?”
Meanwhile, a report by Blast has it that in 2018, Morales suggested that they acquire her business and trademark as well as collaborate with her on a product line for $10 million (N3.6 billion) (because she used the name first).
Morales has claimed that this admission is false and is taking the suit to court. She said, “When considered together, the admission to Vanity Fair and the refusal to respond to any discovery responses is sufficient evidence to conclude that the Applicant’s intent all along is exactly what Jay Z said: to use trademark applications to prevent others from using the name of their daughter. This is fraud on the USPTO.”
As they say in the movies, we shall see in court.
