Features
5SOS Trademark Application Rejected
Sydney band 5 Seconds of Summer might have hit No. 1 on the Australian charts and had huge touring and record sales success around the world last year. But when the group tried to trademark 5SOS, Australian Trademarks Office delegate Iain Thompson said they were not well known enough.
Photo: Jen Lowery Photography
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“The name of this group is not notorious: apart from these proceedings I have not encountered the group and it is not suggested in the declaration that the group is notorious,” Thompson said in the decision. “Neither does it necessarily follow that if the name of the group were notorious that that directly equates to notoriety as a trade mark.”
His decision emphasized that 5SOS’s similarity to the distress call SOS would cause confusion.