After a year of litigation, rapper Future has settled a trademark lawsuit with another entity that claimed he improperly used their company’s name for one of his latest albums.
According to Bloomberg Law, the “Life is Good” chart-topper and a Hip-Hop production company called High Off Life, LLC have come to an agreement about the trademark infringement case related to his 2020 album, “High Off Life.”
Originally, Future asked a judge to dismiss the claim because it infringed on his First Amendment rights, but that request was shut down.
A representative for High Off Life LLC released a statement saying his client, who founded his company 16 years before the aforementioned project was dropped, and the Atlanta native have “reached a mutually agreeable resolution.”
AllHipHop.com reports Judge W. Scott Hardy said in his decision, “Although Defendants cite various cases in which a court granted a motion to dismiss Lanham Act claims by applying Rogers, as one court has observed, ‘consideration of the Rogers defense on a motion to dismiss appears to be the exception, not the rule.’”
“In this instance, even if the Court were to accept Defendants’ invitation to apply the Rogers framework as a valid defense to HOL’s claims, the Court concludes that a motion to dismiss is not the appropriate stage in this litigation to address the applicability of the First Amendment defense,” Hardy continued.
The rapper’s crafty legal team tried to argue the album met the standards of the Rogers Test, thus allowing the title of an artistic work to be protected from the Lanham Act.
The judge was not moved.
“While the Album would appear to qualify as a work of artistic expression subject to the Rogers framework, it is unclear whether Rogers is applicable to the Alleged Infringing Goods, particularly given that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has expressed doubt as to its applicability beyond the title of a work of artistic expression,” Judge Hardy noted.
“Accordingly, further factual development of the record relative to the nature of the Alleged Infringing Goods will aid in ultimately resolving this issue.”
Little is known regarding the details of the settlement.
While the terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, court documents filed confirm each party will pay their own lawyer fees and cost.
