KISS bassist Gene Simmons has long been considered the business guru of the band having slapped KISS imagery on thousands of officially licensed products. There are also plenty of KISS-related trademarks. According to GerbenLaw.com: “Over the years, several trademarks have been registered that relate to the band members’ legendary makeup designs. In 1999, KISS Catalog, Ltd obtained a federal trademark registration for the demon makeup design to be used on t-shirts, jackets, and caps.”
“They also applied for a trademark for the demon makeup design to be used on toys, dolls, and action figures in 2004. Also in 2004, a federal trademark registration was filed for the Catman, Spaceman, and Starchild makeup designs to be used on t-shirts, jackets, and caps. In 2011, they applied for a trademark registration for each of the makeup designs for use in recorded music such as videos, and years later for use in comic books as well as other books that relate to music.”
Simmons even saught to copyright the “devil horns” hand gesture, a fixture among heavy metal audiences for decades. “It is very highly unlikely that the United States Patent and Trademark Office, who examines and registers trademarks, would issue one for Mr. Simmons,” said John Conway, a trademark and business law attorney and CEO of the Astonish media group to CNBC. “Mr. Simmons would have to somehow demonstrate the uniqueness or special meaning… that consumers would automatically connect that hand signal to Mr. Simmons as an artist,” he added. Conway also pointed out that the gesture is used in sign language, and is similar to the one used by Spider-Man to spin a web—which dates back to at least the 1960s.
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, legendary heavy metal vocalist King Diamond was asked about details of an alleged rift with Simmons, as it was rumored that the KISS bassist intended to sue the Mercyful Fate vocalist for copyright infringement for his use of makeup. King Diamond was asked if he had bumped into Simmons since the rumor began.
“No, I haven’t,” he replied. “I think that would be a lot of fun. I have no outstanding stuff with him. There’s a lot of reasons why this happened: [Kiss] dropped their makeup around this time, but they still had the copyright on the look. I was never influenced by them – my influences were Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper. I said, ‘I don’t have a lot of money that you can sue me for, but you have a lot of money that other people can sue you for.’ They were not the first to wear makeup. It never got to be a lawsuit, it just got stirred up.”
Mercyful Fate played its first show in 23 years in Germany last week, and the band performed its first new song since 1999, “The Jackal of Salzburg.” King Diamond previously said of the track: “It’s quite a monster, I would say. It’s almost nine minutes long. So, it’s not just a quick little [song]. We hope we can play it. We’re gonna do everything in our power to play it. It’s not recorded yet. So whatever version we might play for you could change before it is fully recorded. Some drums have been recorded — that’s what I can say.”
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