Elvis Trademark Enforcement

The company that manages Elvis Presley’s trademarks has Vegas wedding chapels all shook up. I’m Amy E. Feldman.

Authentic Brands Group, the company that licenses Elvis-branded merchandise, just sent cease and desist letters to several Las Vegas wedding chapels, telling them to quit using Elvis’s name, likeness, image, or persona in their products or promotions. Many of those small chapels are saying Don’t Be Cruel—this move will cost us our livelihood.

But there may be a reason that Authentic Brands Group now believes that it’s Now Or Never to stop them from using it. That’s because under copyright law, if a trademark owner doesn’t monitor the mark or enforce its rights, the Patent and Trademark Office could act as the Devil in Disguise, and decide the trademark has lost its distinctiveness and then can cancel the trademark. So if Authentic Brands does enforce those marks, the wedding chapels may soon become Heartbreak Hotels.