Mariah Carey’s application to trademark “Queen of Christmas” has been denied.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled against the pop superstar after her company failed to respond to singer Elizabeth Chan's opposition to the application, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In early 2021, Carey’s company Lotion LLC sought to trademark “Queen of Christmas,” “QOC,” “Princess of Christmas” and “Christmas Princess,” for 16 categories of goods, including recordings, clothing, fragrances, food, alcoholic beverages, decorations and face masks.
In August, singer Elizabeth Chan – who releases nothing but Christmas music (her 2021 album is titled Queen of Christmas) – filed formal opposition to Carey’s trademark application in August.
Singer Darlene Love also spoke out about Carey’s attempt to trademark “Queen of Christmas."
Lotion LLC did not respond to Chan’s filing by the deadline.
In a statement, Chan said: “As an independent artist and small business owner, my life’s work is to bring people together for the holiday season, which is how I came to be called the Queen of Christmas. I wear that title as a badge of honour and with full knowledge that it will be — and should be — bestowed on others in the future. My goal in taking on this fight was to stand up to trademark bullying not just to protect myself, but also to protect future Queens of Christmas.”
There has been no comment from Carey or her reps.
Carey has brushed off the "Queen of Christmas" title on several occasions. In an interview last year on UK radio, Carey said: “That was other people, and I just want to humbly say that I don’t consider myself that."
Country legend Dolly Parton recently bristled at being called “the new queen of Christmas" in an interview with Better Homes & Gardens. “I’m not going to compete with Mariah," she said. "I love her. You think of Christmas, you think of Mariah. I’m happy to be second in line to her.” Carey shared her reaction on Twitter. “Dolly, let’s settle this one," she wrote. "You are the Queen of Everything! The Queen of the World, The Queen of Christmas, The Queen of Mine!! Love you!!!!”
On Nov. 1, a songwriter who sued Mariah Carey earlier this year over her ubiquitous holiday hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” dropped his lawsuit. Andy Stone claimed in a June filing that Carey and co-writer Walter Afanasieff should pay him at least $20 million U.S. for “copyright infringement, unjust enrichment and misappropriation.”
According to his lawsuit, filed in the US District Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana, Stone wrote and recorded a song titled “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in Nashville in 1989. It was released in 1993, a year before Carey’s song.
Stone claimed he trademarked the phrase "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and alleges Carey and Afanasieff “knowingly, willfully and intentionally engaged in a campaign to infringe [Stone’s] copyright in the work … to the commercial gain, personal profit and unjust enrichment of the defendants and the irreparable injury and financial loss.”
Carey, whose 1994 holiday song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has become a contemporary classic, recently released a children’s book titled The Christmas Princess, written with Michaela Angela Davis and illustrated by Fuuji Takashi.
She brings her Merry Christmas To All! show to Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Dec. 9 and 11.