Confusion surrounds 5 Seconds of Summer trademark application

A trademark application by Australian pop band 5 Seconds of Summer that was rejected because an IP official had “never heard of” them has sparked confusion.

The group’s production company, One Mode Productions, applied to have the band’s nick-name ‘5SOS’ registered as a trademark at IP Australia, and argued it was synonymous with the band, the Herald Sun news website reported this morning (January 26).

But, despite a number one album and more than five million Twitter followers, the application was rejected by examiner Iain Thompson because he had not heard of the band.

“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.

“Neither does it necessarily follow that if the name of the group were notorious that that directly equates to notoriety as a trademark,” Thompson added in his decision, made last year.

But a trademark search on IP Australia’s website suggested that the application had later been accepted by Thompson.

One Mode Productions has previously registered the mark ‘5 seconds of summer’ at the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market.

Neither the band’s press spokesperson nor IP Australia responded to a request for comment on the application’s status.

The Melbourne office of law firm Allens Patent & Trade Mark Attorneys, which filed the application for One Mode Productions, has also been contacted for comment.

Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford and Luke Hemmings, the band’s members, helped 5 Seconds of Summer to become one of the most popular groups in the US last year after their debut album hit the top of the charts, selling 259,000 copies in its first week.