Lady Gaga Defeats Lawsuit That Claimed ‘Mayhem’ Album Name Infringed a Surfboard Brand

Lady Gaga has won a court ruling dismissing a lawsuit that claimed her Mayhem album infringed the trademarks of a surf company that sells a brand of Mayhem surfboards.

Lost Surfboards sued the star last year, claiming people who saw her album name would think it was somehow connected to the surf company.

But in a decision Tuesday (Aug.

18) first reported by Billboard , Judge Fernando M.

Olguin ruled that the case was clearly too weak to move ahead.

Related Taylor Swift’s Lawyer to Judge: ‘Life of a Showgirl’ Branding Is Protected by First Amendment HYBE Pledges Over $300k for Colombia Earthquake Recovery BE:FIRST Is Ready for the World: Inside the J-Pop Superstars' Long-Planned U.S.

Breakthrough The ruling turned on the First Amendment, which allows the creators of books, movies and songs to freely use trademarks unless they are intentionally designed to dupe consumers.

In his decision, the judge said Lady Gaga’s album name was nothing of the sort.

“These allegations are conclusory and insufficient to constitute an explicit indication, overt claim, or explicit misstatement identifying Lost as the source of Lady Gaga’s work,” the judge wrote in his decision, obtained by Billboard .

“The use of a mark alone is not enough … and nothing in the [lawsuit] suggests or otherwise indicates an affirmative misrepresentation in connection with the source or the content of Lady Gaga’s work.” Lost sued Gaga (Stefani Germanotta) last year, calling her choice of album name a “blatant disregard” of the company’s trademark rights to its Mayhem brand, which it has sold since the 1980s.

It argued the name was not only confusing, but that it appeared on the album and merch in a stylized red logo that was highly similar to the one on the surfboards.

“Lady Gaga has unilaterally, and without Lost’s permission or knowledge, attempted to misappropriate the Mayhem name,” the company’s lawyers wrote at the time.

But for decades, U.S. courts have made it very difficult to sue over the use of trademarks in “expressive” works like books, movies and songs, ruling that the First Amendment right to free speech generally trumps the rights of a brand owner to police how their name is used.

Related Lady Gaga Sets Midyear Boxscore Record on The Mayhem Ball With $236M Gross Starting with a case involving Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, longstanding precedent says a trademark owner can only sue if the use of their name was completely irrelevant to a creative work or was explicitly misleading — a tough standard to meet.