The Queens of Christmas: Elizabeth Chan, Darlene Love, and Mariah Carey
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” hitting the airwaves again, but the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decided Mariah Carey cannot have the trademark “Queen of Christmas.”
Beginning in October, Mariah Carey’s immensely popular Christmas anthem sees an uptick in Google searches and rises in the charts. As I write this blog, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has already cracked the top 20 on Apple Music and Spotify. For the next six weeks, Carey will dominate radio and streaming, especially among holiday music. So, she must be the Queen of Christmas, right?
Carey’s company, Lotion LLC, filed to register the trademark “Queen of Christmas” in early 2021. Singer Elizabeth Chan filed an opposition to Carey’s application on August 11, 2021. Chan wrote, “Christmas is big enough for more than one “Queen.” In fact, over the decades, several recording artists have been dubbed . . . the “Queen of Christmas.” . . . This is a perennial nickname that has been and will continue to be bestowed on multiple future singers for decades to come.” Chan identified herself, Darlene Love, and Brenda Lee as Queens of Christmas, in addition to Carey.
Chan described herself as pop music’s only full-time Christmas singer. She said she has embraced the title “Queen of Christmas” since at least 2014, and the New Yorker magazine gave her the same title in 2018. Responding to all of this news, singer Darlene Love posted on Facebook that David Letterman had called Love the Queen of Christmas in 1993. Chan further alleged that Carey rejected the title “Queen of Christmas” in a 2021 interview with the Zoe Ball Breakfast show. Carey said in the interview, “I just want to humbly say that I don’t consider myself [the Queen of Christmas] . . . . [T]o me, Mary [the mother of Jesus] is the Queen of Christmas.”
Chan challenged Carey’s application for the mark “Queen of Christmas” according to 15 U.S.C. § 1052. Section 1052(a) states that a trademark application can be denied if it falsely suggests a connection with another person; Section 1052(d) adds that an application can be denied if the application is for a mark that is so similar to a mark that is already registered that it might create confusion between the two. Chan argued that Carey’s use of the mark would likely create confusion and the potential for false association because Chan was already using the mark in connection with her own music, streaming, recording, entertainment, television, and holiday goods and services. Chan claimed that, because she and others were using the mark before Carey attempted to register a trademark for it, it would be unfair for Carey to be the owner of the moniker.
On October 1, 2022, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a notice to Carey’s company because it had not answered Chan’s challenge. By November 15, 2022, Lotion LLC still had not answered, so the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board entered a judgment in default against it. With that, Mariah Carey’s attempt to own the trademark “Queen of Christmas” was defeated. But, as Chan said, “Christmas is big enough for more than one Queen.”