Photo Credit: FKA twigs (@fkatwigs / Instagram)
FKA twigs wins the first stage of her trademark infringement legal row against indie group The Twigs, which has been simmering for more than a decade.
FKA twigs has won the first stage of the trademark infringement trial against indie duo The Twigs. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that The Twigs’ claims of infringement were too outdated. The two parties have been engaged in a legal dispute for over a decade.
The initial legal dispute started back in 2014, when the indie group sued FKA twigs (whose real name is Tahliah Barnett) for allegedly infringing on the trademark they had been using since 1996. However, they lost their initial injunction and dropped the lawsuit.
But in 2024, The Twigs (sisters Laura and Linda Good) issued a cease-and-desist letter to Barnett, demanding that she stop using the name after she applied for her trademark. In response, FKA twigs filed her own lawsuit against the duo earlier this year, asking a judge to rule that her stage name does not infringe on their name.
The sisters filed a counterclaim against Barnett, alleging that she was using her fame and resources to “destroy” their established trademark.
Now, the court has ruled in Barnett’s favor in the first stage of proceedings, citing the doctrine of laches, which “prohibits the unreasonable delay of legal action. That means their claims were too outdated to be pursued.
According to court documents, Judge Rakoff said that the sisters were “aware of Barnett’s allegedly infringing activity as early as 2013 when the parties exchanged emails, and certainly no later than 2014 when the Goods sued Barnett alleging trademark infringement.”
Further, the judge noted that the duo did not take any further action against FKA twigs’, who released music under that name for years, until 2024—”and did not bring the instant claims until 2026.” Therefore, they waited a decade to take any action.
As a result of the decision, Barnett cannot be sued for infringing the indie duo’s trademark. However, unresolved accusations from Barnett that the Goods pressured her to change her name remain.
Filings from earlier this year outlined that Barnett offered the Goods $15,000 to allow their musical entities to “co-exist,” but they turned her down. Her legal team also argued that it was “inconceivable” that consumers would confuse the two artists; FKA twigs has 3.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, while the indie band has “simply disappeared” and only has “25 monthly listeners on Spotify.”
Barnett’s attorneys added that “the parties operate in entirely different commercial ecosystems.” They accused The Twigs of not only having threatened to seek an injunction preventing the artist from using her stage name, but also demanding “a significant seven-figure payout to release any alleged claims against Barnett.”
Leave a Reply