Kanye West triumphs in ‘Loisaidas’ trademark dispute

A US court has dismissed a trademark lawsuit filed against singer Kanye West centring on the term ‘Loisaidas’.

In a ruling handed down at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Katherine Forrest found in favour of West, upholding his motion to dismiss a complaint filed by a music duo called Loisaidas.

‘Loisaidas’ is a Spanish slang word for “lower east siders”.

The band claimed that West’s online videos about the downtown drug trade in Lower East Manhattan, which is also called Loisaidas, infringed a trademark for the band’s name.

Damon Dash, who produced the video, is also named as a defendant.

The band’s creator, Michael Medina, said its trademark is “inherently distinctive”. The mark, which covers audio recordings and music videos, has been owned by Medina since 2011.

In her ruling, handed down on July 14, Judge Forrest cited the First Amendment, which she said prevents claims that are “inadequately pled”.

“The mark at issue in the instant action, ‘Loisaidas,’ is an established demonym for residents of a particular Manhattan neighbourhood,” she wrote.

She continued: “Plaintiff is entitled to protect his duo’s trademark, but not by staking his claim to a pre-existing term and then attempting to remove all expressive, non-explicitly-misleading uses from public circulation.

“Consideration of plaintiff’s complaint … permits only one conclusion: that the work is a film, and that its title is artistically relevant to its content and not explicitly misleading as to any association with plaintiff’s music duo.”