In retaliation against Clarke's trademark application, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman submitted their own counter-claim to gain ownership of the band's name. McGuinn had actually attempted to trademark the Byrds name himself during the 1970s, in order to prevent its misuse, but his application had been turned down. To strengthen their case, the three musicians announced in December 1988 that they would be performing a series of concerts in January 1989 as the Byrds. Although he was no longer connected with Clarke's tribute act, Gene Clark was not invited to participate in these official Byrds reunion concerts due to residual ill-feeling stemming from his earlier "20th Anniversary Tribute to the Byrds".
The reunion concerts were a resounding success, but with Michael Clarke continuing to tour with his Byrds tribute, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman filed a lawsuit against the drummer in the spring of 1989, suing him for allegedly false advertising, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices, as well as seeking a preliminary injunction against Clarke's use of the name. At the court hearing in May 1989, the judge denied the injunction, ruling that McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman had failed to show that they would be irreparably damaged by Clarke's actions. As a result, Clarke gained full legal ownership of the name the Byrds. In the wake of this ruling, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman dropped their lawsuit, but to demonstrate that they had not wholly surrendered the Byrds name to Clarke, the three musicians appeared under the banner of "The Original Byrds" at a Roy Orbison tribute concert on February 24, 1990, where they were joined on-stage by Bob Dylan for a rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man". Later that year, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman entered Treasure Isle Recorders in Nashville to record four new Byrds tracks for inclusion on the forthcoming The Byrds box set.
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