Nobody told her there'd be days like these.
Lennon Murphy—a little-known singer-songwriter who was named after John Lennon—has found herself at odds with Yoko Ono over who has legal rights to the famous moniker.
An attorney for Lennon's widow filed a petition last week with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office seeking to cancel a trademark Murphy took out in 2003 for "Lennon" as the name of her band.
The petition cites the "likelihood of confusion" in the marketplace and "dilution" of the music icon's surname. (Lennon itself is a fairly common throughout Ireland and is derived from the Gaelic word Leannon, which means a "lover" or "sweetheart.")
The 25-year-old Murphy claims that, as a courtesy, she sought and received Ono's blessing to use the name back in 2000, when she signed with Arista Records.
According to Murphy, the label was concerned about the name issue and sent her product manager, Justin Shukat (reportedly the son of Ono attorney Peter Shukat), to approach the prickly 74-year-old artist. Ono supposedly gave her okay, clearing the way for the Tennessee-born Murphy and her eponymous band to release 5:30 Saturday Morning.
Read more at Yahoo! News.
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