Cavern Club Courting Hard Rock Café

Cavern Club, which bills itself as “the cradle of British pop music” and “the place where the Beatles’ musical identity was formed,” wasn’t too pleased when Hard Rock filed for the U.S. trademark to the name in the mid ’90s and opened a Cavern Club of its own in Boston.

The owners of the Liverpool venue attempted to have the trademark canceled in 2011, but their application was overruled, according to BBC News.

But the club hasn’t given up just yet, and is now set on appealing the matter in federal court in Florida.

Paul Rapp, an attorney for the Cavern Club, told the BBC Hard Rock had filed the trademark “to keep the Cavern from entering the US market.”

Cavern had plans to open venues in the U.S., Spain and Brazil, and has licensed the trademark for clubs in Australia and Argentina, BBC said. “If this dispute is not put right, perhaps in some decades time kids might be confused into believing that the four lads who actually changed the world from a cellar bar in Liverpool instead started out at a Hard Rock,” Rapp continued. “And that would be a travesty of history and a tragedy for music heritage.” A trial is scheduled for early winter, he said.