Gene Simmons and His Attempt to Patent Orange Juice

Gene Simmons – whose real name is Chaim Witz – is the famous Israeli-American jewish frontman of the rock group ‘KISS’ and quite a piece of work in his own right. Since for years now aside from the fact that’s notoriously wealthy with an estimated wealth of $400 million: (1) Simmons has been on binge of trying to trademark common - or potentially common - gestures, phrases and terms so that he can paid royalties for them and hoard even more money.

As Graham Hartmann explains at ‘LoudWire’:

‘One of 2017’s big stories was Simmons’ attempt to trademark the “I love you” hand sign. That gesture, along with the more malevolent “devil horns” has been universally associated with rock music for decades, so Simmons’ effort to “own” the symbol wasn’t well received by music fans. Gene eventually withdrew his application, but the stir allowed for a list of 182 alleged trademark endeavors from Simmons to be published via Noisey.

We asked Simmons about the trademarks, some of which he claims to have never filed for. However, many of them are true, including the term “Trophy wife.” “Trophy Wife was a show I created that Lion’s Gate and I were doing,” Simmons says. “Lion’s Gate said they wanted to change the title because it’s demeaning to women. I said, well, I appreciate that, but I didn’t create the term. It’s what it’s called when you have a beautiful woman and she has no other abilities … I’ve gotta do it my way or the highway, so I took the project back.”

Another successful trademark from the KISS legend was “?enis”. The slight twist on “Penis” was actually supposed to be the title of a book “about women’s and men’s fascination with that thing — the staff of righteousness.”

Finally, Simmons dismissed the famous claim by Ronnie James Dio that Gene had attempted to trademark “OJ” for orange juice. “That is an urban myth,” Simmons claims.’ (2)

Now the simple truth is that Simmons denying he tried trademark the letters ‘OJ’ (meaning ‘Orange Juice’) so that he could profit off royalties every time ‘OJ’ was used on television and radio is probably simply reputation management since – although the claim comes from Simmons’ fellow rock musician Ronnie James Dio (born Ronnie James Padavona) – it is a bit extreme even for him and his similar attempt to patent the devil horns hand symbol common among heavy metal/rock fans since the 1970s/1980s met with a strong popular and media backlash (3) and his trying to profit of patenting the shorthand term ‘OJ’ would cause even more furore and loss of reputation.

This is easily demonstrated by pointing out that – as Drew Millard has pointed out in ‘Vice’ – that Gene Simmons has tried to trademark a lot of things for example:

‘The thing is, I’m not sure Gene Simmons knew he couldn’t register the devil horns as a trademark––or if he did, he was willing to earnestly try to register it anyway. According to a search of the US Patent Database for “Gene Simmons,” the bassist has attempted to register 182 trademarks, including “Chefs of Rock,” “Gene Simmons Demon,” “Gene Simmons Groupies,” “Gene Simmons Wet,” “Gene Simmons Rich & Famous,” “Gene Simmons Tongue,” “Gene Simmons Media Mogul,” “Exotic Car Wash,” “Naked Car Wash,” “Nude Car Wash,” “Topless Car Wash,” “Symposium of Success,” “International Fight Club,” “Big Band,” “Trophy Wife,” “Sextacy,” “Dominatrix,” “Dominatrex,” “Zipper,” “Because It’s My Life,” “Space Hunter,” “I Want to Marry a Millionaire,” “$#it Girls Say,” “Me, Inc,” “Global Art Bank,” “Titans of Rock,” multiple images of bags with dollar signs on them, “Women Are From Mars — Men Have ?enis,” and simply “?enis.”’ (4)

From the above we can see that Simmons trying to patent ‘OJ’ is not either unlikely or outside the realm of possibility but instead is quite likely to actually be true. This is especially so because Simmons is a notoriously greedy and money-hungry jew who openly professes his hatred and scorn for the poor of America (5) who is notorious for abusing and exploiting his fan base by charging extremely high prices for fan experiences: for example, being his ‘assistant’ for a day costs you $12,495 and a simple meet and greet costs $6,500 per fan. (6)

Now why you’d pay Simmons for such an ‘experience’ is quite frankly beyond me but it does speak to how absolutely awful Simmons’ character and personality is as well as how – as we have seen – he has an extreme amount of chutzpah and has continually been trying to trademark gestures, terms and sayings – often in common use – to try and see if he can be awarded the trademark and thus start profiting off of them.

Put in simple terms: Gene Simmons is the archetypal greedy jewish exploitative capitalist.

References

(1) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14487179/KISS-rocker-Gene-Simmons-charging-fans-insane-money-assistant.html

(2) https://loudwire.com/what-has-gene-simmons-actually-tried-to-trademark/

(3) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/24/why-gene-simmons-attempt-at-patenting-his-hand-gesture-wouldnt-have-worked.html

(4) https://www.vice.com/en/article/all-the-dumb-shit-gene-simmons-has-tried-to-trademark/

(5) https://www.loudersound.com/news/kiss-gene-simmons-poor-people-owe-me

(6) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14487179/KISS-rocker-Gene-Simmons-charging-fans-insane-money-assistant.html