Jelly Roll is on the receiving end of a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement over his stage name.
Rolling Stone reports that Kurt L. Titchenell has filed suit against Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord.
Kurt Titchenell is the leader of a Pennsylvania-based band called Jellyroll, and in his suit, he states that his band has used that name since March of 1980, more than four years before Jason (Jelly Roll) DeFord was even born.
They received a trademark in August of 2010 and renewed that trademark most recently in December of 2019. According to the lawsuit, the wedding band Jellyroll has performed at “celebratory and charitable events” throughout the Northeast “since at least 1980,” including two White House appearances during the George W. Bush administration.
The lawsuit alleges that since Jelly Roll's "recent rise in notoriety" search engines including Google have consistently prioritized his results over the band's, significantly injuring their online exposure.
The band's attorneys sent Jelly Roll a cease-and-desist letter in February of 2024, followed by discussions between the parties' lawyers in which Jelly Roll's attorney allegedly "inquired as to whether Defendant really was in competition with Plaintiff."
Jelly Roll has not commented publicly on the suit.