Lizzo.Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty
Lizzonow has the legal documents to back up her DNA test results.
“Considering the entirety of the record, we find that most consumers would perceive 100% THAT Bitch used on the goods in the application as associated with Lizzo rather than as a commonplace expression,” reads Thursday’s decision.
The USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) reversed its decision after rejecting Lizzo’s application last year.
An examining attorney previously argued that the phrase is “a message of self-confidence and female empowerment,” which fans “may associate” with Lizzo, but “does not entitle the applicant as a singer-songwriter to appropriate for itself exclusive use of the phrase.”
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“All of the evidence of record regarding third-party use of 100% THAT Bitch is from 2017 or later,” the TTAB explained. “The Urban Dictionary entry for the term is dated June 12, 2019. Thus, the evidence is contemporaneous with or subsequent to the release of Lizzo’s hit single ‘Truth Hurts.’
Lizzo wins three Grammys at the 2020 awards.Rachel Luna/FilmMagic
Although Lizzo originally dropped “Truth Hurts” in 2017, she re-released the single with her third studio albumCuz I Love You(2019), giving it the steam it needed to earn her first Billboard No. 1 song andone of her first Grammy Awardsfor best pop solo performance.
Lizzo told PEOPLE of the song’s belated success: “The day I released ‘Truth Hurts’ was probablyone of the darkest daysI’ve had ever in my career. I remember thinking, ‘If I quit music now, nobody would notice. This is my best song ever, and nobody cares.’
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“I was like, ‘F— it, I’m done,'” Lizzo said in 2019. “And a lot of people rallied; my producer, my publicist and my family, they were like, ‘Just keep going because this is the darkest before the dawn’ … Who would have thunk?”
source: people.com
