Nashville, TN (September 20, 2021)—Bringing to a close a seven-year legal dispute between Auratone and Music Tribe, Auratone has successfully protected its company trademark against the conglomerate, parent company to Midas, Klark-Teknik, Lab.gruppen, Lake, Tannoy, Turbosound, TC Electronic, TC Helicon, Aston Microphones and Behringer.
Auratone was founded in 1958 by Jack Wilson, who later registered a trademark application for his speakers in 1963, expanding into the Auratone Corporation in the 1970s. Throughout this time and for decades after, the company’s signature loudspeakers were used in studios around the world, including famously as part of the production of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. By 2004, however, Wilson’s health was failing and he did not renew the company’s trademark. He died a year later at the age of 84.
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As a family-owned business, the company was then essentially inert for the better part of a decade before it was reorganized and began building new products in the early 2010s. Soon after, in April, 2014, Music Tribe filed an application to register the Auratone trademark, which led the original Auratone Corporation to file a protest that June. Nonetheless, in 2018, Music Tribe began selling branded C5A and C50A speakers, prompting the Auratone Corporation to file a trademark infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court; Music Tribe counter-sued.
The U.S. District Court has now ruled that Auratone has sole rights to use its name and has granted an injunction against Music Tribe. Other judgments in Europe at the EUIPO and Board of Appeal have resulted in the revocation of Music Tribe’s trademark registration.
Alex Jacobsen, president of Auratone, commented in a statement, “Auratone has been a family business for over 60 years. We continue to operate as the way my late grandfather Jack Wilson, the founder of Auratone, would have wanted it. To everyone who has supported us, thank you for helping keep the Auratone dream alive and protecting a part of history. Very few lawsuits make it to a final judgment and being a small business, the cards were always stacked against us. Without you this wouldn’t have been possible, and now the next generation of audio engineers will be able to continue producing hits on Auratone speakers for years to come. This has always been what is most important to me and worth fighting for.”
