It’s been all over the news. Do you hear a difference between “Yuuup” and “Yuuup?” Believe it or not, this variation of “yes” has been trademarked.
From the Storage Auction Central Blog. Read the complete story here.
Dave Hester, cast member of Storage Wars, has been reported to have filed a lawsuit against musician Trey Songz that seeks to prevent the rapper from interfering with his use of the word “YUUUP!”
This comes after attorneys for Songz served Hester with a “cease-and-desist” order demanding he stop using the phrase on television. Songz argued that the term has been his “signature phrase” since 2009, however, Hester successfully registered a trademark for the sound earlier this year.
In the complaint, Hester claims that Songz’s sound “resembles an animal-like or non-human squeal which begins with a distinct ‘yeeee’ sound before finishing with a squeal-like ‘uuuup’ sound,” which differentiates it from Hester’s “distinct and different from Hester’s more monosyllabic sounding guttural auction bidding phrase … which is meant to convey the meaning of ‘yes.’ “
Read more here.