Offbeat | Danish Elvis fan loses ‘Graceland’ trademark dispute

A court in Denmark has ordered the owner of a museum modeled after Elvis Presley’s Graceland Mansion to pay 500,000 kroner (USD75,000) in damages to a U.S. company that owns the Graceland trademark.
Memphis, Tennessee-based GL SPE LLC sued Henrik Knudsen for using the name Graceland for his museum in Randers, in northwestern Denmark.
The Maritime and Commercial High Court in Copenhagen on Wednesday ruled in favor of the U.S. company, and ordered Knudsen to pay damages for trademark infringement.
Knudsen has since changed the name of the museum to Memphis Mansion. Twice the size of the original Graceland, the museum includes Knudsen’s private collection of Elvis artifacts, an American diner-style restaurant and a souvenir shop. Last year it received more than 130,000 visitors.