The US government has provisionally rejected Led Zeppelin’s attempt to secure a new trademark for the band’s mysterious “Led Zeppelin Experience” project, meaning the band may be forced to disclose more information about what the project is.
LedZepNews revealed in July that Led Zeppelin had filed last-minute paperwork aimed at keeping control of the US trademark for “The Led Zeppelin Experience”, the name of the band’s mysterious project which could be an exhibition, a hologram or even an archive of live recordings.
On July 14, lawyers representing the Jimmy Page-owned business Superhype Tapes filed a new trademark application in the US seeking to retain ownership of the brand name “The Led Zeppelin Experience”.
The trademark application covered “entertainment services” such as “live performances, road shows, live stage events, theatrical performances, live music concerts and audience participation in such events”. It also covered clothing sold using the brand name.
On December 9, the US government provisionally rejected Led Zeppelin’s trademark application. It claimed that “The Led Zeppelin Experience” is too similar to the band’s existing trademark for its name.
“‘The Led Zeppelin Experience’ is confusingly similar to the registered mark ‘Led Zeppelin’,” the US government wrote.
“Because the marks look and sound similar and create the same commercial impression, the marks are considered similar for likelihood of confusion purposes,” it explained.
In its provisional refusal, the US government also sent Led Zeppelin’s lawyers a screenshot of a dictionary website, showing the definition of the word “experience” as it explained why the band couldn’t create a new trademark by simply adding the word on to an existing trademark.
“‘Experience’ merely describes a feature of applicant’s services, as the term means events
lived through or participated in. See attached evidence from American Heritage Dictionary,” the US government wrote.
Led Zeppelin now has three months to respond to the US government if it wishes to revise its trademark application for “The Led Zeppelin Experience”. The band’s lawyers may share more information about the project in order to explain why they should be able to use the word “experience” in a separate trademark to the band’s name.
The history of The Led Zeppelin Experience
Beginning in 2017, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin and the estate of John Bonham were jointly involved in the planning of The Led Zeppelin Experience, which seems to have been a planned exhibition with a potential hologram component and potentially live recordings involved too.
The band filed a US trademark application for “The Led Zeppelin Experience” on November 2, 2017. Weeks later in December 2017, Jason Bonham changed the name of his band from “Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience” to “Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening”.
Bonham spoke to Billboard in 2018, explaining: “I got a letter from their attorney, who happens to be my attorney as well. As I read the first few lines I felt very upset,” Bonham said. “It was my wife who saved me from getting into a rage; I was about to group-dial Jimmy, John Paul and Robert and go ‘What the hell…!’ but she said ‘Read the rest.’ And I saw it wasn’t personal. They wanted to free up the terminology.”
The members of Led Zeppelin and Pat Bonham set up a UK business named Company 2018 in June 2018 which carries out “activities of exhibition and fair organisers”, according to Companies House filings. Each surviving band member and Bonham own 25% of the business.
Speaking in 2021 during an interview with Eddie Trunk, Bonham said that “there was something they were working on, which from the looks of what the news – just saw in the news the other day, it was possibly something similar to what Pink Floyd had done with the Pink Floyd Experience. I think they wanted the terminology, ‘Experience,’ to be able to do something like that, I guess.”
Speaking to Uncut Magazine for an interview published in its May 2022 issue, Page confirmed that Led Zeppelin had planned its own exhibition. “There was something at one point,” he said. “But all the members and people around the band couldn’t agree.”
Page has also confirmed that Led Zeppelin had been approached about a potential hologram of the band. Led Zeppelin was asked to do “that sort of thing”, Page said on stage at the Hay Festival in Wales in June 2022. However, he explained that the surviving band members couldn’t agree about the project so it “didn’t really get moving”.
Led Zeppelin also owns trademarks for “The Led Zeppelin Experience” in the UK and in Europe. They are due to expire in November 2027.
Company 2018, the UK business set up seemingly to manage the project, remains trading and continues to file accounts every year. However, the continued trading of the business doesn’t prove that the exhibition is still being worked on.
Three P Films, a UK business set up in 2011 to support the release of “Celebration Day”, remains active, as does P & P Touring which was incorporated in New York in 1994 to support Page and Robert Plant’s touring.
Why did you have to do Jason like that in the first place when you had no actual plan Jimmy? 😔
Seems quite blown out of proportion, frankly a media attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill…
Cue the Frank Drebin ‘Police Squad’ gif: “Nothing to See Here”🙃👌
…That said, an eventual holographic Zeppelin, Hendrix, Lennon, Elvis, SRV, & any other eventual non performing entertainer could be a very unique ✨️’experience’✨️🎶😎
How about ‘Experience Led Zeppelin’
T his band has way too much history for this.
@HarrisonG
I don’t think you’re wrong about that, but I also feel like it’s a newsworthy series of events, especially given how many lawyers are seemingly involved. Not to mention, busy firing off trademark applications, C&D letters to people (Jason) who should really be treated like family rather than Defendant 1. I get that any business as profitable and multi-faceted as Led Zeppelin can’t so much as sneeze without massive bureaucratic mechanisms spinning up just to offer it a tissue, but this all does seem a bit MUCH.