The iconic and controversial mega star, Kanye West finds his brand Yeezy in a prickly situation with Wal-Mart. The store has filed a recent notice of opposition against him regarding a logo that they say looks a little to similar it own.
Yeezy's January 2020 application for the brand's new logo through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was blocked by Wal-Mart this week. The logo featured eight dotted lines in an arrangement that resembles sun rays. While West states that the new image was to be used in conjunction with a syndicate of products beyond sneakers - such as other apparel items, home decor, and electronics - anyone familiar with the commerce giant could point out the staunch similarities between West's logo and that of Wal-Mart's 13 year old signature sun burst image.
On April 21, an opposition was filed to West's team on the grounds of priority and likelihood of confusion. Wal-Mart initially seemed to have full intentions of solving the matter with the least amount of legal action, sending West's team a letter two days before the opposition was filled.
"Walmart has repeatedly sought to understand Yeezy’s planned use of the Yeezy Application," the letter reads, "with the goal of finding ways in which the Walmart Spark Design and the Yeezy Application can co-exist with one another.
"However," the store's representative continues, "to date, we have not received any conclusive information from Yeezy regarding the planned use or any cooperation from Yeezy in order to find common ground."
This isn't the first case of West's attempts to trademark a look-a-like logo. Per his 10 year deal with the Gap, the entertainer revealed a logo on April 9th to commemorate the partnership with a blue logo that displays 'YZY' in sleek white letters. While the similarities are quite apparent, their partnership makes the probability of a legal dispute unlikely.
Yeezy, in lighter news, recently broke footwear records by selling the most expensive shoe in history on April 26th. The highly sought after Nike Air Yeezy I was purchased by Rares - a -company that sells hard to find sneakers. The organization, "plans to fractionalize pieces of the shoes as an investment," as reported by Bloomberg.
"Kanye is an iconic figure," co-founder of Rares, Gerome Sapp says in a statement to Bloomberg, "We just felt like this shoe was the catalyst for what we wanted to do in terms of fractional ownership."
Sources: Footwear News, New York Post, Bloomberg