Major retrenchment by Cecil McBee, which used to rack up sales of nearly $1million a month in Shibuya 109. The fashion brand took its name from jazz musician Cecil McBee. He sued and lost in a Tokyo court. Wonder if you can guess why he lost... https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Retail/Fashion-brand-Cecil-McBee-to-close-all-stores

Cecil McBee, then and now. His name was apparently first chosen for the fashion brand as early as 1984 but he only became aware of it when he toured Japan in the mid-90s, when someone showed him a store. He was not best pleased.

He asked the patent office to revoke the Cecil McBee trademark, which was registered at the time to apparel firm Delica. The patent office took his side, and did just that in February 2002. However, Delica appealed this decision in the Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo.

On December 26th, 2002, the High Court overturned the patent office, and restored Delica's trademark name. The court ruled the law protected McBee's full name, but, as his actual full name was Cecil Leroy McBee, "Cecil McBee" alone wasn't covered. Merry Christmas, Cecil!

The High Court ruled Cecil McBee was a short form of Cecil Leroy McBee, I suppose in much the same way as Kimutaku is short for Kimura Takuya. I'm no lawyer but the patent office website does say abbreviated names of others cannot be trademarked: https://www.jpo.go.jp/system/trademark/shutugan/tetuzuki/mitoroku.html

I doubt, for instance, that the High Court would let someone trademark Kimutaku if he hasn't done so already (he probably has). The court probably just concluded McBee wasn't prominent enough in Japan for that clause to count.

The High Court ruling flies in the face of how, legally and practically speaking, names are regarded in the west, and McBee was understandably frustrated, and tried to find a legal remedy through US courts.

McBee had gone through Japane courts first, because he'd been told that US jurisdiction was questionable. For a US court to intervene, McBee had to demonstrate he had suffered economic damage in America. Two separate courts rejected his lawsuit. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/417/107/580573/

Unfortunately for McBee, the bar for showing economic damage was high. He demonstrated that Delica was willing to ship to the US by ordering apparel himself but the court required evidence of more general commercial transactions.

While McBee could recount stories of people assuming he was linked to the brand, and sometimes making fun of him, he wasn't able to link this to evidence of specific economic damage to the satisfaction of the court. He had no further legal recourse.