Will the real Bilbo Baggins please stand up? Not a trick question but a pressing legal one after a defunct 1970s rock band named after the JRR Tolkien fantasy fiction character attempted to reform.
The row pitted the mighty American film company behind the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies against a little-known Scottish band whose main claim to fame was that they once sang backing vocals for the Bay City Rollers.
It follows similar recent legal disputes between the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC), which holds the rights to Tolkien's novels and their characters, and two obscure UK establishments: Birmingham's Hungry Hobbit café and The Hobbit pub in Southampton.
The musicians' dreams of a reunion have ended in disaster at the Intellectual Property Office after a judge decided to shut down an appeal. Bilbo Baggins' former manager Henry Spurway was told that calling their revived act Henry Spurway's Bilbo Baggins did not differentiate it clearly enough from the famous hobbit Bilbo.
Spurway's attempt to register the band's name fell flat when SZC filed an objection which was later upheld. Adjudicators reviewing the case had to decide whether punters would connect the band's name with the hobbit character played by Martin Freeman in the recent film. The adjudicator, Geoffrey Hobbs QC, said there was no reason to send the case to a fresh hearing in the Scottish courts.