Guns N’ Roses in a thorny dispute with Texas company
At a Texas-based gun and florist company, which boasts of being “America’s largest online firearm and accessories mall,” customers can purchase two tone pink roses and a Daniel Defense DD4 RIII semiautomatic rifle at the same time.
Texas Guns and Roses now is facing a lawsuit from the rock band Guns N’ Roses. The Los Angeles-based band says the Houston-based gun store is “damaging” the band’s name without their “approval, license, or consent.”
The gun store’s name is “likely to cause confusion with the GUNS N’ ROSES mark, falsely suggesting a connection with GNR, and was likely to dilute the GUNS N’ ROSES mark,” according to the lawsuit. It was filed last week in federal court in California on behalf of Guns N’ Roses against Jersey Village Florist, which owns Texas Guns and Roses.
“This is particularly damaging to GNR given the nature of Defendant’s business,” wrote band attorney Jill M. Pietrini in the lawsuit. “GNR, quite reasonably, does not want to be associated with Defendant, a firearms and weapons retailer. Furthermore, Defendant espouses political views related to the regulation and control of firearms and weapons on the Website that may be polarizing to many U.S. consumers.”
Although the Texas gun store spells it out, the band argues that the two names are identical because “N” is shorthand for “and.”
As of Tuesday, Texas Guns and Roses had not responded to the lawsuit. A phone call requesting comment was not returned.
The gun store operates a physical retail store in west Houston and an online retail store at texasgunsandroses.com. Texas Guns and Roses filed for trademark protection in 2015 and registered it in 2016, U.S. Patent and Trade Office registration records show.
In 1984, band co-founders Tracci Guns and Axl Rose combined their respective bands “LA Guns” and “Hollywood Rose” and their surnames to form “Guns N’ Roses.”
The band’s 1987 debut studio album “Appetite for Destruction,” which included the hits “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
In 2019, Guns N’ Roses sued a Colorado brewery, accusing it of piggybacking off their fame to sell beer and merchandise, according to the Associated Press.
A year later, Guns N’ Roses sent Texas Guns and Roses a letter, demanding the gun store voluntarily change its name.
In November 2021, the band filed a petition to cancel Guns and Roses’ trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trial and Appeal Board.