Here’s what’s trending in trademarks this month: a Callaway driver ad co-produced with a golf media brand becomes a case study in humor-as-brand-risk and partner vetting; Lady Gaga defeats the Mayhem trademark suit on First Amendment grounds; Nike and Lontex quietly settle a $5 million attorneys’ fees appeal after oral argument at the Third Circuit; and the TTAB reminds Serena Williams that fame alone will not overcome a straight likelihood-of-confusion analysis when the goods and services overlap.
Callaway and Good Good Golf: when the joke becomes the brand
On August 22, YouTube golf channel Good Good posted a promotional video titled The Driver, made in partnership with Callaway Golf to promote a Callaway driver. The clip showed Good Good personality Garrett Clark charging at co-creator Alexis Miestowski, shoving her to the ground as she reached for the club, and standing over her to say, “Do not touch my new driver.” Both companies deleted the video late Friday after widespread accusations that the spot made light of violence against women and issued public apologies over the weekend. Clips of the ad continued to circulate on social media after the takedown.
The reputational fallout was immediate. Good Good, set to serve as title sponsor of a PGA Tour event this fall, said the video “depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand.” Callaway said it was “disappointed.” Industry press was less measured. MyGolfSpy and BroBible openly asked how a publicly traded company greenlit the ad, with one commentator noting that Callaway had just spent years building a broader female audience through initiatives like Good Good Girls.
There is a real trademark and brand-protection lesson buried in the story, and it goes beyond the obvious “don’t make light of domestic violence.” Humor in advertising is a legitimate creative choice, and brands lean on it because it is memorable and shareable. That same quality; however, can lead to risk. When a joke misses, it does not just underperform; it attaches to the mark. Consumers remember the brand that made the joke, not the agency or the media partner. For a mark whose goodwill is built over decades, a single 56-second video can force a company into apology mode and hand critics a permanent piece of content to recirculate every time the brand is discussed.
The co-branding angle is also important. The ad was produced under a partnership with a content creator whose editorial voice is younger, edgier, and less filtered than a traditional agency might be. And that is often the point of the partnership, but that can bring risk without appropriate oversight and control over how a partner uses your mark. When a brand licenses its name and product into a partner’s content channel, the partner’s editorial judgment becomes the brand’s editorial judgment for that piece. Trademark counsel should push for co-branding and endorsement agreements that include content-approval rights, defined categories of prohibited content (violence, harassment, protected-class humor), a takedown obligation with defined response windows, and indemnification tied to reputational harm and not just IP claims. A pre-publication review clause that identifies a specific approver or a specific approval process on the brand side is more valuable than a generic “brand shall have approval rights” recital, because it forces the requisite content review by the brand owner.
Want to dig deeper into co-branding agreements? My article Pitfalls of Co-Branding covers the details.
Lady Gaga defeats the MAYHEM suit on First Amendment grounds
On August 18, Judge Fernando M. Olguin of the Central District of California dismissed with prejudice the trademark infringement suit filed by California surf and streetwear company Lost International (“Lost”) against Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta) over her 2025 album Mayhem, the associated Mayhem Ball tour, and tour merchandise. Lost holds a federal registration for MAYHEM in Class 25 dating to 2015, with a claimed first use in commerce of January 15, 1992. It sought roughly $100 million in damages, alleging that the stylized red MAYHEM logo on Gaga’s merch was confusingly similar to Lost’s longstanding surf brand. See Lost International, LLC v. Germanotta, No. 8:25-cv-00592 (C.D. Cal.).
The court applied the Rogers framework for expressive works. Under Rogers, use of another party’s mark in an expressive work is not actionable under the Lanham Act unless the use has no artistic relevance to the underlying work or explicitly misleads consumers as to source or content. Judge Olguin held that Gaga’s use of MAYHEM was artistically relevant to the album and tour, and that Lost’s allegations of consumer confusion were “conclusory and insufficient to constitute an explicit indication, overt claim, or explicit misstatement identifying Lost as the source of Lady Gaga’s work.” The ruling extended to tour merchandise, not just the album title, because the merchandise was tied to the expressive work rather than sold as a standalone apparel line competing in Lost’s market. The court had previously denied Lost’s motion for preliminary injunction in December 2025 on similar grounds.
Lost’s counsel indicated the company would continue to protect its MAYHEM mark and remained open to dialogue. An appeal to the Ninth Circuit remains available.
For counsel advising musicians, filmmakers, and other creators on album, film, and tour naming, two points from the decision warrant emphasis. First, Rogers continues to do real work in the Ninth Circuit even after Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products, because the accused use here was not source-identifying for a competing product line. When the challenged use is the title of an expressive work and its natural merchandise extensions, Rogers remains a meaningful shield. Second, the ruling does not eliminate the underlying trademark risk that comes from naming an album or tour after someone else’s registered mark. Clearance still matters, particularly where the artist plans to expand into merchandise that overlaps with the senior user’s core goods. A different fact pattern (a fashion line under the MAYHEM name detached from the album, or evidence of explicit misleading conduct) could flip the analysis and result.
Nike and Lontex settle $5 million fees appeal at the Third Circuit
On August 13, Nike Inc. and Lontex Corporation jointly asked the Third Circuit to vacate the district court’s attorneys’ fees ruling in their long-running trademark case following a court-ordered mediation that closed after oral argument. The underlying merits judgment awarded Lontex $791,000 on its trademark infringement claim against Nike over the mark COOL COMPRESSION. The district court then found the case “exceptional” under Section 35(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), and awarded roughly $5 million in attorneys’ fees, characterizing Nike’s litigation conduct as “unreasonable” and “overly aggressive.”
Nike appealed. After argument, the parties reached a mediated resolution conditioned on the Third Circuit vacating the exceptional-case finding and the fee award.
For trademark litigators, this settlement is worth watching for two reasons. First, the merits win-to-fees ratio (roughly six-to-one) illustrates the outsized exposure that exceptional-case findings create in Lanham Act practice. A defendant who fights hard and loses can face fee awards that dwarf the compensatory judgment when a district court concludes the litigation was pursued unreasonably. Second, the choice to mediate after oral argument, rather than accept the appellate ruling on the merits, shows the strategic value of vacating an order finding a party acted “exceptionally” to a defendant with a national brand.
TTAB: Serena Williams’s fame does not save SERENA VENTURES from a Section 2(d) refusal
On August 12, in In re Serena Williams, Serial No. 90321926 (TTAB Aug. 12, 2026) [not precedential], the Board affirmed a Section 2(d) refusal of SERENA VENTURES (VENTURES disclaimed) for venture capital and investment services, in view of the registered mark SERENA for overlapping investment services offered from Clearwater, Florida.
Williams argued that her mark carried a “layered meaning” tied to her identity as a well-known tennis player. The Board took judicial notice of her fame under TBMP § 1208.04, but only for the limited purpose of assessing whether SERENA carried a distinctive connotation for the first DuPont factor. The problem, as the Board framed it, was that the same connotation would attach to the cited SERENA registration in the same investment-services context. There was “nothing inherent in the marks or the financial services at issue that would portray different meanings to consumers.” Fame, in other words, cut both ways. Williams also argued that the registrant only operated in Clearwater and that she did not offer services there. The Board rejected the geographic-non-overlap argument, noting that the cited registration was unrestricted and carried a presumption of nationwide exclusive rights under Section 7(b) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1057(b), regardless of the registrant’s actual footprint.
The Board did credit Williams on one factor. The fourth DuPont factor (purchaser sophistication) weighed slightly against likely confusion because venture capital and investment customers exercise greater-than-ordinary care. But that finding was not enough to outweigh the Board’s findings on similarity of marks, similarity of services, and channels of trade, which largely carried the analysis. For practitioners, the key takeaways are twofold. First, judicial notice of a celebrity client’s fame is available at the TTAB, but it is not a substitute for record evidence, and it is not a substitute for a clearance search. When the senior user’s mark is the client’s first name for legally identical services, the Board is not going to solve that with a fame narrative. Second, the geographic-restriction argument is a common client instinct (“but they only operate in one city”) that is irrelevant to the TTAB’s analysis. An unrestricted federal registration is presumed nationwide, and the Board finds that argument more relevant to an infringement action or concurrent use proceeding, but not for an ex parte appeal.
