Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo are battling over the Neptunes name rights in court. As Billboard reports, lawyers representing Hugo sent legal action last week that confronted Williams and the company he owns to allegedly register trademarks for the Neptunes name without allegedly consulting Hugo which allegedly violates an agreement they have had to split everything equally between the pair of production partners and childhood friends.
“Throughout their over thirty year history, [Hugo] and Williams agreed to, and in fact, have divided all assets,” Hugo’s attorney wrote in the legal action. “By ignoring and excluding [Hugo] from the any and all applications filed by applicant for the mark ‘The Neptunes,’ applicant has [allegedly] committed fraud in securing the trademarks and acted in bad faith.”
When contacted by Billboard, a representative for Williams said: “Pharrell is surprised by this. We have reached out on multiple occasions to share in the ownership and administration of the trademark and will continue to make that offer. The goal here was to make sure a third party doesn’t get a hold of the trademark and to guarantee Chad and Pharrell share in ownership and administration.”
But the team has since claimed that Williams had “knowingly and intentionally” issued trademark applications for the Neptune’s on his own, and that his team has been “repeatedly” messaged about the issue.
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