{"id":7877,"date":"2025-09-18T19:38:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T19:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-estate-says-apollonia-name-lawsuit-must-be-dismissed\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T19:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T19:38:33","slug":"prince-estate-says-apollonia-name-lawsuit-must-be-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-estate-says-apollonia-name-lawsuit-must-be-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Estate Says Apollonia Name Lawsuit Must Be Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tT<\/span>he Prince<\/a> estate is now asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by the late singer\u2019s Purple Rain<\/em> co-star Apollonia<\/strong>, who claims the estate is trying to \u201csteal\u201d her name.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn court filings Wednesday, the estate (Paisley Park Enterprises LLC) says it has no intention of stopping the singer and actress (Patty Kotero<\/strong>) from continuing to use her stage name \u2013 and that her lawsuit was \u201cimproperly filed\u201d over \u201chypothetical threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPPE has absolutely never insisted that plaintiff cease using Apollonia as her stage name, nor has PPE demanded that plaintiff cease any of her business activities,\u201d writes L. Londell McMillan, a longtime Prince advisor and one of the managers of Paisley Park Enterprises. \u201cI have personally told this to plaintiff several times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tApollonia, who rose to fame playing a character of the same name in Purple Rain<\/em>, sued the estate last month, claiming it had \u201cembarked on an aggressive campaign\u201d at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel her trademark registrations to the name. \u201cThere is only one Apollonia,\u201d she wrote at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Wednesday\u2019s response filing, the estate says it wanted to peacefully co-exist with her \u2013 and that it only took action at the USPTO because her existing trademark registration on \u201cApollonia\u201d was blocking the estate\u2019s own efforts to secure a trademark for \u201cApollonia 6,\u201d the name of the Prince-founded girl group that Kotero led.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe estate says it had valid grounds to seek to cancel Kotero\u2019s trademark, which it claims she obtained \u201cduring [the] chaotic period following Prince\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFollowing his death, certain people with no ownership interest in Prince\u2019s trademarks registered or applied to register marks that rightfully belonged to Prince,\u201d McMillan writes in the court filings. \u201cThese same individuals never attempted such improper actions during Prince\u2019s lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrince died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016 without a written will, and his affairs spent more than six years in probate court, as heirs, advisors and others battled over how the valuable estate would be managed in the future. The estate is now split evenly between Paisley Park Enterprises and another group controlled by Primary Wave (which is not involved in the current dispute).<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Michelle<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tApollonia, whose song \u201cSex Shooter\u201d from Purple Rain spent six weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, filed her lawsuit in August, claiming Paisley Park Enterprises\u2019s litigation seeking to void her trademark registrations was threatening \u201cto disrupt not only Apollonia\u2019s livelihood, but also her identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in this week\u2019s court filings, the estate says it never made such threats, meaning Apollonia has no grounds to sue: \u201cDefendant has not demanded that Kotero give up her name, nor has defendant accused plaintiff of infringement,\u201d the estate writes. \u201cPlaintiff\u2019s case should therefore be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em>, Kotero\u2019s lawyer Daniel M. Cislo said: \u201cUnfortunately, this is another attack on Apollonia\u2019s name which will be dealt with in Apollonia\u2019s favor.\u201d Her attorneys will have chance to respond to the estate\u2019s motion to dismiss in the weeks and months ahead.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prince estate is now asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by the late singer\u2019s Purple Rain co-star Apollonia, who claims the estate is trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6661,2059,70,303,2427],"class_list":["post-7877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-apollonia","tag-dismissed","tag-estate","tag-lawsuit","tag-prince"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}