Won't the real Slim Shady™ please stand up?

Photo by Barefoot Beach Designs on Unsplash

US rap star Eminem is trying to get a US trade mark for ‘Swim Shady’ revoked after the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) let an Australian beach umbrella and swimming accessories company register it in the US earlier this year.

Eminem – real name Marshall B. Mathers III – registered Slim Shady as a trade mark with the USPTO in 1999, when he launched the album of the same name. He was granted a TM on Slim Shady by the UK Intellectual Property Office in 2000. However, the BBC story on the latest legal action for trade mark revocation says Eminem only applied for a TM in Australia in 2025. The BBC also reports that the Australian company was originally named Swim Shade, and changed its name to Swim Shady in 2023.

Lawyers for Eminem have now filed an official letter with the USPTO calling for the Australian company's US TM to be revoked. His legal teams also lodged opposition to Swim Shady’s trade mark as of the end of 2024 in Australia and, according to the UK IPO Trade Mark database, the UK.

A Guardian story reports that “Swim Shady has since filed non-use applications against Eminem’s Shady and Shady Limited trademarks in Australia, arguing they have not been consistently used.”