IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK—N.D. Tex.: Preliminary injunction to stop promotion of pageant with 'Miss Texas USA' trademarks granted, (Jun 26, 2026)

By Carolin Dennis, B.Sc., LL.B., LL.M.

The district court found that a total injunction was necessary to prevent a would-be Miss USA from inadvertently participating in the wrong pageant.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the national operator of the Miss USA pageant (BDE Miss USA LLC) against a Texas-based production company from promoting an unauthorized pageant with “Miss Texas USA” trademarks. While the court concluded that BDE Miss USA LLC was likely to succeed on its trademark infringement claims, the court denied production company’s motions for temporary restraining order (BDE Miss USA, LLC v. Pageant Guy Productions, LLC, No. 3:26-cv-01718-X (N.D. Tex. Jun. 23, 2026)).

Background. The Pageant Guy Production LLC is a Texas LLC entirely owned and controlled by William L. Henderson (collectively, The Pageant Guy) that operated Miss Texas USA and Miss Texas Teen USA state-level pageants during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 years pursuant to limited-term licenses or agreements that did not grant perpetual ownership, assignment, or independent trademark rights. The Pageant Guy operated the 2025 pageant without a renewed contract. Moreover, no new license agreement was executed for 2026. From 2024 to the present, JKN Legacy Inc. has operated the Miss Universe Organization. In September 2025, the exclusive rights to operate the national pageant and control the associated intellectual property were licensed to BDE Miss USA, LLC (BDE), controlled by Thom Brodeur. The Pageant Guy did not execute a standstill agreement with BDE and did not pay BDE for the use of Miss Texas or Miss Teen Texas.

The Miss USA and Miss Teen USA marks are part of a nationally controlled and federally protected family of marks that identify the national pageant system and the official pathways into it. The state-level designations, including MISS TEXAS USA and MISS TEXAS TEEN USA, derive their significance from that same national structure. It is only by way of the Texas state-level preliminaries that a contestant can participate in the national Miss USA and Miss Teen USA competitions and because The Pageant Guy has neither executed a standstill agreement nor paid BDE, BDE considered the state of Texas vacant. Therefore, BDE launched an open casting call to identify contestants from Texas. Yet, the Pageant Guy planned pageant to identify Miss Texas and Miss Teen Texas July 17–19th in Houston Texas.

Both parties moved for preliminary injunctive relief. BDE filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, and The Pageant Guy filed a motion and amended motions for temporary restraining order (TRO).

Preliminary injunction. The court observed that a movant must establish: (1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) a substantial threat of irreparable harm if the injunction is not granted; (3) that the threatened injury outweighs any harm that may result from the injunction to the non-movant; and (4) that the injunction will not undermine the public interest.

Likelihood of success on the merits. The court found that neither party disputed that the dueling uses of the marks at issue are likely to cause confusion. BDE warned of marketplace confusion in real time. At the same time, The Pageant Guy sought a TRO in its favor to prevent consumer confusion that would result from crowning competing titleholders under the same trade names. The court noted that while The Pageant Guy argued that its television production and merchandise sales are “distinct from the competition marks,” the use of the marks is inseparably intertwined with consumers’ beliefs about “the origin, sponsorship, or approval” of The Pageant Guy’s activities.

BDE, although not the owner of The Miss USA and Miss Teen USA marks, was granted the exclusive right to commercially profit from those marks in Section 3.1 of the Interim Agreement, marks that The Pageant Guy is using to promote its own pageant competition. The court found that under Section 3.2 of the Interim Agreement, BDE has the exclusive right to use the Intellectual Property solely in connection with the operation and management of the Brands, collect revenues and manage financial operations of the Brands, and represent the Brands to regulatory authorities, vendors, and other third parties as authorized agent of Licensor. Thus, any use of those marks by The Pageant Guy to represent its own pageant as a valid pathway to the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA competitions violated the exclusivity of BDE’s licensed rights. Further, the likelihood of confusion and subsequent damage to BDE that stems from The Pageant Guy’s use of the marks at issue showed that BDE was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim under the Lanham Act. Additionally, because BDE’s claim was mutually exclusive to The Pageant Guy’s implied ratification claim, the latter was not likely to succeed on the merits. Accordingly, the court concluded that BDE established a clear likelihood of success on the merits under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act because it has a cognizable interest in the marks at issue and will “likely to be damaged by” The Pageant Guy’s parallel pageant.

Irreparable harm. The court noted that BDE alleged harm is the loss of control over the marks, contestants entering the wrong pageant, and the damages to the goodwill of the brand. Furthermore, BDE was entitled to the Lanham Act’s rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm upon showing likelihood of success. The court found that The Pageant Guy has failed to rebut the presumption of irreparable injury because it has no license to use the marks, did not execute a standstill agreement with BDE, and has paid no fees to BDE. The court noted that even without the presumption of the Lanham Act, a plaintiff’s lack of control over the quality of the defendant’s goods or services constitutes an immediate and irreparable injury, regardless of the actual quality of those goods or services. Therefore, the court determined that BDE would suffer irreparable injury.

Balance of the equities. The court weighed the harm BDE faced without a preliminary injunction against the harm the injunction would cause to The Pageant Guy. BDE sought to enjoin The Pageant Guy from further misleading the public that its upcoming pageant will make women eligible to compete as Miss USA. The court found that while The Pageant Guy may be harmed by having to cancel his upcoming pageant, it pales in comparison to the unpaid use of marks to which The Pageant Guy has no authority to use. In short, a preliminary injunction asks little more than for The Pageant Guy to comply with federal trademark law and to stop misleading the public. The court noted that The Pageant Guy can have his own pageant, but it cannot advertise itself as part of the Miss USA ecosystem when it is not. Therefore, the balance of the equities weighed strongly in favor of BDE.

Public interest. Lastly, a preliminary injunction prohibiting The Pageant Guy from misleading women into entering a pageant that does not qualify its contestants to be part of the Miss USA ecosystem serves the public interest. Here, women who are interested in becoming Miss Texas would find no value in entering a The Pageant Guy competition for its own sake, instead only entering the regional pageant for the chance to compete at the national and international stage. Therefore, an injunction does not impede the free market of pageants. Therefore, public interest also weighed in favor of granting the preliminary injunction to prevent further violations of the Lanham Act.

Thus, all four factors weighed in favor of a preliminary injunction. Accordingly, the court granted BDE’s motion for preliminary injunction and concluded that a total injunction was necessary to prevent harm to BDE’s reputation.

The Case is No. 3:26-cv-01718-X.

Judge: Starr, B.

Attorneys: Matthew Elliott Yarbrough (Buchalter LLP) for BDE Miss USA LLC. Ervin Aaron Cartwright, III (E. Aaron Cartwright III, Attorney at Law) for The Pageant Guy Productions LLC and William L. Henderson.

Companies: BDE Miss USA LLC; Pageant Guy Productions LLC

Cases: Trademark TexasNews