Led Zeppelin continues to fight to trademark the name of its mysterious “Led Zeppelin Experience” project in the US, filing paperwork on March 5 requesting more time to make its case that the band should again be awarded control of the trademark.
LedZepNews reported in December that the US government had provisionally rejected Led Zeppelin’s attempt to secure a new trademark for the brand “The Led Zeppelin Experience”, the name of the band’s mysterious project which could be an exhibition potentially with a hologram component.
In its provisional refusal, the US government claimed that “The Led Zeppelin Experience” is too similar to the band’s existing trademark for its name. Led Zeppelin had until March 9 to make its case to the US government that it should regain the trademark.
On March 5, days before the deadline, the band’s trademark lawyers filed paperwork requesting a three-month extension to the deadline.
If successful, Led Zeppelin’s request will give the band until June to attempt to regain control of the trademark. The US government has not yet granted the extension request, however.
A request for an extension signals that Led Zeppelin’s lawyers could fight back against the US government in an attempt to secure the “Led Zeppelin Experience” trademark, an indication that the project may still move ahead.
Xavier Morales, a trademark lawyer in the US, wrote in December that the US government’s provisional refusal “puts Led Zeppelin in a trademark trap that catches many famous brands.”
“Statistics show 80% to 90% of merely descriptive refusals are affirmed on appeal,” he wrote, a reference to recent data released by the US government showing that 88% of refusals in 2024 for the reason Led Zeppelin’s application was refused were affirmed.
In his analysis of the options available to Led Zeppelin’s lawyers for a potential counter-argument, Morales wrote that “none of these paths looks promising,” adding that “the band’s fame works against them”.
Led Zeppelin previously secured a US trademark for “The Led Zeppelin Experience” in 2019 but the mark was abandoned last year after the band failed to file the paperwork required to renew it. The band is now seeking to again trademark the brand for the same goods and services, specifically clothing and “entertainment services”.
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 possible 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.
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