CNBC’s star personality Maria Bartiromo is so over her “Money Honey” moniker.
The 42-year-old host of the business cable station’s “Closing Bell” show, who made off-the-air headlines three years ago when she moved to trademark the “Money Honey” name across a host of consumer products, has quietly given up the marks.
Records at the US Patent & Trademark Office show the eight filings for “Money Honey” were abandoned at various times last spring and summer.
The media first affixed the “Money Honey” moniker to Bartiromo in the mid-1990s, when the fast-rising 20-something, reporting during the go-go bull market, could move markets with her Big Board reports.
Her assortment of hairstyles, crisp wardrobe and TV-worthy good looks made the nickname a natural.
Over the years, Bartiromo was said to have privately bristled at the nickname, feeling it demeaned her work. But publicly, she accepted it.
In 2007, it became clear she couldn’t outrun it, so she filed to trademark the name on a host of products, including entertainment and educational services, a Web site, personal finance TV show, toy action figures, card games, jigsaw puzzles and toy cash registers.
Brooklyn-born Bartiromo hired Edward H. Rosenthal, a Manhattan lawyer familiar with celebrity branding to handle the matter — and folks expected the cable star to roll out a host of products.
But soon after her new seven-figure a year, multi-year deal kicked in last April, she walked away from the marks.
Rosenthal could not be reached for comment on why Bartiromo dropped the Money Honey trademarks.