Claws Come Out Over Deadmau5 Cat Name

Deadmau5 has filed a countersuit against the owner of Meowingtons.com, who has accused the helmet-wearing producer of trying to compete with her business.

John Davisson – Deadmau5
Ultra Music Festival, Bayfront Park, Miami, Fla.

Emma Bassiri, who owns the cat-themed merchandise website, filed suit against Deadmau5 several months ago.

Now, Deadmau5, who has used the name of his cat, Prof. Meowingtons, PhD, in various merch and on the cover of his 2012 LP, Album Title Goes Here, seeks an injunction preventing Bassiri and the site manager Scott Hutchison from operating under the Meowingtons name and to forfeit the domain.

The famed producer claims that he named his cat and established the “Meowingtons” brand before the website was founded. In the suit he cites a 2010 Facebook photo posted by Hutchison of a laptop playing Deadmau5 music as evidence that plaintiffs were familiar with the name before establishing the business.

Originally, Deadmau5 was only filing a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Bassiri’s rights to the marks. Now, despite “repeated efforts to resolve the dispute amicably,” the artist is trying to force the rival Meowingtons to remove any semblance of the name from its business.

Bassiri recently posted on her site that she “won’t be bullied into submission over something I’ve worked so hard for.”