A mother recently paid nearly $500 for concert tickets she thought would delight her five‑ and six‑year‑old daughters with a night of K‑pop. What she got instead were seats at a Christian heavy metal show.
The mix‑up is not just an inconvenient parenting story. It is quoted in a federal trademark lawsuit that deserves the attention of general counsel well beyond the entertainment industry.
On August 18, the band Demon Hunter, a Christian metal act that has recorded and toured under that name since 2000, sued Netflix and its touring partner AEG Presents in the Central District of California.
The trigger was Netflix’s animated film “KPop Demon Hunters,” now the streamer’s most‑watched movie ever, and the newly announced 150‑city concert tour built around it. Demon Hunter holds federal trademark registrations covering live entertainment, recorded music, and merchandise. Its complaint does not mince words: Netflix, it argues, “is no more entitled to use the mark KPOP DEMON HUNTERS than it would be to launch a recording artist, live touring show, and merchandise under the marks KPOP METALLICA, KPOP U2 or KPOP BLACK SABBATH.”
The fight will likely turn on a doctrine most rarely think about until it lands on their desk: reverse confusion. The textbook trademark story runs one direction. A newcomer trades on an established name, and consumers mistake the newcomer for the original. That is not quite what happened here. Nobody thinks Demon Hunter the band made a Netflix cartoon. The claim runs the other way: Netflix is so large that it risks convincing the market that the band is the copycat, the tribute act, the merchandise knockoff riding on the movie’s coattails. Courts call this reverse confusion, and the Ninth Circuit, which will hear this case, applies the same multi‑factor test used in ordinary infringement claims, but rather than size and marketing reach show market strength, the newer, larger entrant’s sheer size and marketing reach can itself become evidence of infringement.
Reverse confusion risk increases with success: a product, campaign, or feature name that scales quickly enough to eclipse a smaller, earlier user in a market the larger company never intended to enter. The practical lesson is that the reverse confusion risk lives outside direct competitors and adjacent goods, in markets a smaller, longstanding user already occupies or could naturally expand into. A bigger company can unintentionally swamp that user’s goodwill the moment a name goes viral.
Whether Demon Hunter’s suit survives an early motion or heads toward a settlement, as many observers predict, the underlying doctrine is not going anywhere. As brands scale faster than ever, being the biggest name in the room is no longer a defense to a trademark claim. Increasingly, it is the theory of the case.
About the Author
Chelsea Pasquali is a shareholder in Brooks Kushman’s Intellectual Property Litigation practice, representing clients in disputes involving intellectual property and related business issues. She helps companies protect innovations, manage litigation risk, and enforce rights in competitive markets. Her work supports clients across industries where IP is central to business value, including consumer products, retail, e-commerce, and direct-to-consumer, and industrial manufacturing. Chelsea brings a practical litigation perspective to strategies involving patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
About Brooks Kushman P.C.
Founded in 1983, Brooks Kushman P.C. has built a national reputation as a premier intellectual property and technology law firm. We accomplish this with the understanding that the most effective IP solutions come from putting great minds together – our clients and our own. With offices across the country, we forge strong relationships with corporations, small to medium-sized businesses, and leading universities.
Brooks Kushman counts a number of Fortune 100 Corporations across a variety of industries among its clients. Our attorneys have a deep understanding and broad range of experience in a variety of industries and technologies, including automotive, AI & data, automation, consumer electronics, manufacturing, medical device, computer technology, aerospace, chemicals, biotechnology, retail, food & beverage, green technology, fintech, and more. We are also recognized by leading legal publications and rankings, including, Best Lawyers, Law360, Intellectual Asset Management, Managing Intellectual Property, and World Trademark Review. For more information, please visit www.BrooksKushman.com.