New Kids on the Block sue to protect name

N.Y. co. eyed group trademark
By Thomas Grillo
Saturday, June 13, 2009 - Added 56m ago

Photo by courtesy

BLOCKING MOVE: Boston’s New Kids on the Block, shown here during their reunion tour last year, claim in a lawsuit that a New York production company tried to trademark its name and give it to another band.

The New Kids on the Block are suing a production company alleging it attempted to trademark the boy band’s name and extort an undisclosed amount of cash to get it back.

In a suit filed in U.S. District Court in New York, NKOTB Inc. also contends that New York-based SM Productions intended to use the New Kids moniker to launch a new boy band with the same name.

The suit claims SM Productions wanted to register the band’s name and album art from “Hangin’ Tough” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office so it could record music with its group and pass it off as the original band.

The New Kids are asking a judge to declare the original New Kids as the sole owner of the trademarks and “goodwill” associated with the band that sold more than 80 million albums worldwide in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The “boys” - Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood - are now pushing 40. They reunited last year, two decades after the release of their first multiplatinum album, to put out a new CD titled “The Block” and embark on a concert tour.

“The fan response to this has been incredible,” band member Donnie Wahlberg told the Boston Herald last spring.

http://news.bostonherald.com/

*nkotbgirl.from.peru*