Deadmau5 and Walt Disney settle mouse ears legal dispute

Burn not your house to fright the mouse away. Deadmau5 and the Walt Disney Corporation have settled a legal dispute that has lasted almost a year over the “trademark” mouse head that Deadmau5 wears on stage.

Not such a trademark as it turns out … yet. The Canadian electronic dance music DJ – real name Joel Zimmerman – had sought to register the shape of his headwear with the US patent and trademark office for use on other merchandise such as “electronic equipment, entertainment services, BMX bikes”.

In September 2014, Disney filed an official opposition, arguing the mouse’s black ears, black face, white eyes and white mouth would “cause confusion” among consumers, being “nearly identical in appearance, connotation and overall commercial impression to Disney’s mouse ears”.

A lawyer for Zimmerman told the Hollywood Reporter that “Disney and Deadmau5 have amicably resolved their dispute”.

Details of the settlement are not yet available, but Disney is expected to withdraw its arguments against the trademark registration, freeing the way for as many Deadmau5 BMX bikes as the DJ wishes to wheel out.

Zimmerman appeared excited at the news, tweeting “Tadaaa!!!” with extra (no doubt oversized Mickey-style) “jazzhands”.

During the dispute, he had taken to Twitter to tell the Disney corporation to “lawyer up Mickey”. “Disney thinks you might confuse an established electronic musician/performer with a cartoon mouse,” he tweeted. “That’s how stupid they think you are.”

For his part, Zimmerman has dropped a cease and desist order asserting his trademarks against the makers of Deadmouse the Musical in Toronto, about “a mouse who wants to be a house DJ but is discriminated against for being a mouse”.