Lizzo has secured rights to trademark the phrase “100 per cent that b****”.
The singer originally used the phrase in her 2017 hit “Truth Hurts”, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019 after it became a sleeper hit on TikTok.
With the words becoming synonymous with her, Lizzo applied to trademark the saying in 2019 in hope of using it across merchandise and branding.
However, when the application was first filed, it was turned down on the basis that it was a “motivational phrase”, and too general to warrant rights over its use.
The US Patent and Trademark office denied the application, but Lizzo’s team later appealed it.
Now, the singer has won the rights after the organisation decided that the phrase was linked with the singer, whether it was sold by Lizzo or not.
“Consumers encountering ‘100 per cent that b****’ on the specific types of clothing identified in the application – even when offered by third parties – associate the term with Lizzo and her music,” the US Patent and Trademark Office said, reported Rolling Stone.
Despite stating that “Lizzo did not originate the expression she encountered as a Twitter meme”, the board ruled that “nonetheless, lyrics from songs are more likely to be attributed to the artists who sing, rap or otherwise utter them, rather than the songwriters”.
In “Truth Hurts”, Lizzo sings: “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100 per cent that b****.”
There was some controversy around the phrase in 2018 after British artist Mina Lioness claimed Lizzo took the phrase from her tweet which she called “my creativity, my wit and my comedy”.
Lizzo denied ever seeing the tweet, attributing the phrase to a meme. She did, however, add a writing credit to the song for Lioness in 2019.
She also filed a lawsuit against two producers who accused her of plagiarism over the song.
