Trademarks, Patents, Trade Secrets and Copyrights
For this weeks blog we looked over some of the court cases that involve the improper use of intellectual property (IP) in the fashion industry. The cases that I reviewed dealt with the following designer lines Christian Louboutin, Konfidence, and BCBG. These cases stood out the most to me because these companies have marks that are easily recognizable by the general public without having to have the names plastered on the items. With Savage Beauty heading into the fashion industry and wanting to patent design elements to help the company become easily recognizable it is important to find out what these companies go through to protect their image.
In the case of Christian Louboutin vs.
Yves St. Laurent the case was about the use of the red bottom soles that
Louboutin has become associated with in the eyes of the public. Louboutin has
been trying to keep the red bottom soles to themselves for years and
continually find themselves in court trying to protect their interest in the
red soles. In this particular case both the plaintiff and the defendant won. The
court found Yves St. Laurent not guilty of infringement due to the fact that a
single color could not function as a trademark. Louboutin lost the case because
they were suing for the use of the color red and not for the use of a certain
number of red on a color chart. US Trademark law states that a color can be
registered only if it is not functional
and if it has acquired a secondary meaning. Louboutin won the case in the way
that the only way that the red soles are trademarked by them is in the event
that the top of the shoe is not the same color as the sole of the shoe. Yves
St. Laurent won the case because there entire shoe was red including the bottom
so they did not infringe on the red bottom brand.
The second case that I reviewed was
the Confidence Haugen vs. Konfidence this case was one based off of the use of
logos. Haugen was suing Konfidence on the pretense that they were using a logo
that had already be registered to their company and that the public was already
associating with their company. For this case things went a little different
due to the fact that at the initial hearing the court ordered Haugen to stop
using the logo and to close her shop with immediate effect due to the infringement.
But after being informed by the counsel for Haugen that the process was
supposed to be handled by a commercial court and not a fast track court the
ruling was removed and Haugen was allowed to continue business until the case
was refilled and with the right court.
This lawsuit was over the bandage dress that has
become more and more popular over the past few years. BCBG was suing Stretta Moda
for infringement of the popular bandage style dress. The court case ended with
a settlement on behalf of BCBG where Stretta agreed to pay them an undisclosed
amount for using there design as her own. BCBG was suing stating that the bands
of fabric placed in horizontal strips was a non-functional design element of
their own.
I feel that in all of the cases mentioned above
that there are similar issues a business has made their way by branding certain
things in the eyes of the public and someone else has come along and tried to
capitalize off of it. In the case with Louboutin especially I feel that no
company should be able to trademark the color of the bottom of a show and agree
with the court in their rulings that the only way Louboutin can hold a monopoly
on the sole color is if the only thing red on the shoe is the sole. The BCBG case to me made the least amount of sense only because I could not understand how using bands of fabric in a certain direction could be monopolized by one company. I have personally seen this design done by every designer, and prior to reading this case would have never been able to tell you who was the original designer of the style. More information about these cases can be found by using the links listed below.
No comments:
Post a Comment