Music charity Rhythmix has said the X Factor has left it with ‘considerable’ legal bills, following a battle with the programme over an X Factor band who tried to trademark the charity’s name.

For the past couple of weeks Rhythmix, a music charity which works with young people, has been locked in a legal wrangle with the makers of X Factor, who had sought to trademark the name 'Rhythmix' for use by a girl-band on the Saturday night entertainment show.

Syco and TalkbackThames, who produce the X Factor, have this week announced that they will no longer use the name 'Rhythmix' for the show’s band.

However, Russ Grooms, east regional co-ordinator for Rhythmix, has told civilsociety.co.uk that the actions of the X Factor have been “really sneaky”:

“They have not contacted us about the decision,” he said. “They simply released a press statement which we saw in the news.”

He said that the charity had been left with “considerable” legal bills after having to engage a lawyer when the X Factor sought to trademark the name 'Rhythmix' in Europe:

“We have a UK trademark for the name under education,” he said, “but a European trademark would have superseded it. It would mean we potentially would have to give up the name or go by terms and conditions that could have been attached to the name.

“We’ve had the name for 12 years so it was not viable to lose our brand. The X Factor fully understood who we were before they went for the trademark. It was really sneaky.”

Grooms said the charity was now in talks to see if the X Factor would pay the legal bills it incurred during the dispute.

He added that he believed that the X Factor took the decision to drop the name following a Facebook campaign  and a tweet from Twitter stalwart Stephen Fry in its defence.

Fry had tweeted the open letter which Rhythmix chief executive Mark Davyd had written to X Factor creator Simon Cowell about the matter.

A spin-off campaign page on Facebook called Raging for Rhythmix has also supported the charity’s cause over the past few weeks.

The X Factor team did not respond to enquiries.