AMERICAN CO. BAGS VICTORY OVER LOUIS VUITTON

Reuters Louis Vuitton has lost the first stage of an attempt to protect its trade mark in New York. The French company has failed in its bid to get an injunction stopping American bag manufacturer Dooney & Bourke using a DB logo in bright colours on black and white handbags. Louis Vuitton had launched a similar range of luggage in October 2002 bearing its LV logo. US District Judge Shira Scheindlin said, in delivering her ruling:

"Louis Vuitton created a new look and now seeks to preclude others from following its lead …If Louis Vuitton succeeds, then it will have used the law to achieve an unwarranted anticompetitive result ... the objective of trademark law is not to harm competition."
The judge found that no evidence of confusion among actual consumers had been shown and there were substantial differences between the two bags that would enable consumers to tell them apart. However, Louis Vuitton can still proceed to trial or appeal the judge’s decision on the injunction.

This case strongly reminds the IPKat of the UK Roho passing off case. In both cases the principle is, if there’s no confusion then free competition must be allowed to continue, even if the defendant has copied the originator of the design.

Got the real thing? How to feed it here
Take advantage of the court’s decision and make your own Louis Vuitton bag here
How to tell if someone’s make his/her own Louis Vuitton bag here
AMERICAN CO. BAGS VICTORY OVER LOUIS VUITTON AMERICAN CO. BAGS VICTORY OVER LOUIS VUITTON Reviewed by Anonymous on Sunday, August 29, 2004 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.