With a new year comes new beginnings, and so it will be for theoretical presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who is now just a mere Jeb, and no longer, ahem, Jeb!

Per Mother Jones, a shadowy Jeb-controlled company called BHAG LLC (trust me, you don’t want to know what that stands for) has let its trademark application for the phrase “Jeb!” lapse. Mother Jones reports that BHAG LLC never responded to a United States Patent and Trademark Office request for Jeb’s consent to let Jeb be Jeb!:

According to the original application, Bush wanted the name reserved for use on leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff. In April, the USPTO asked BHAG to provide, within six months, written consent from Bush himself to use his name. Bush never responded. So the USPTO issued an abandonment notice regarding the trademark request.

In recent months the Bush campaign—which declined to comment to Mother Jones—had shifted away from “Jeb!” and towards “Jeb Can Fix It,” a slogan one figures they will also have to abandon once he, you know, doesn’t.

[image via Getty]


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.