Kevin Durant sued over nickname

BY RYAN ABER
raber@opubco.com

A night before leading the Thunder into Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Kevin Durant was coping with being sued.

Why?

His nickname: “Durantula.”

Guitarist Mark Durante, who has played with Public Enemy, The Aliens, The Next Big Thing and others, filed a lawsuit against Durant, Nike and Panini Authentic in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois on Wednesday.

Durante claims he trademarked the name in 1993

According to the lawsuit, Durant’s representatives told Durante that “Kevin does not use the term as a nickname and has no intention of doing so,” according to the suit.

The lawsuit appears to be a longshot, according to the Chicago Tribune. Marc Reiner, chairman of the intellectual property group at Anderson Kill & Olick, told the paper the pair being in different fields could affect Durante’s claim.

“Trademark infringement is unlikely when the first user of the trademark is in music and the second is in sports, even thought there is some overlap between the two forms of entertainment,” Reiner, who is not involved in the case, told the Tribune.

The suit asks for damages and an injunction against Durant or the companies using the nickname.