Sector: Fashion & Luxury

Earlier this month, a dawn raid on a notorious counterfeit market sparked a riot that left 12 Thai law enforcement agents injured. The raid was masterminded by a low-profile consortium of high-profile trademark owners; its chairman tells World Trademark Review that the violent reaction proves it is doing real damage to counterfeiters’ businesses.

22 February 2016

The Chinese government has stepped up efforts to combat parallel imports of luxury goods in recent months. However, some reports suggest that customs scrutiny is hampering the efforts of foreign brands to directly sell authentic goods in China through online channels. That is good news for the traders known in Chinese as daigou and their Rmb43 billion business in grey-market luxury goods

17 February 2016

The Second Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market has declared the Community trademark ALEXANDER WANG to be invalid in its entirety due to the existence of bad faith when the trademark application was filed.

17 February 2016

In a recent decision under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, a luxury fashion sportswear company obtained the transfer of 50 domain names incorporating its trademark, which were being used to point to websites either offering counterfeit products for sale or containing pay-per-click links to competitors’ websites.

16 February 2016

An anti-counterfeiting raid on behalf of French brand owners left 12 Thai police injured as hundreds of angry traders protested against the seizure of goods from an infamous border market. Despite the unfortunate turn of events, the operation indicates that Thai authorities are paying increased attention to the country’s border with Cambodia - a major conduit for fake goods originating from China.

05 February 2016

My Other Bag, Inc has successfully invoked the parody defence in a claim for federal dilution, federal and state trademark infringement and copyright infringement brought against it by Louis Vuitton. The court concluded that in some cases it is better to accept the implied compliment in a parody and to smile or laugh than it is to sue.

05 February 2016

The La Coruña Court of Appeal has upheld a first-instance decision sentencing the owner of around 10,000 items of clothing bearing well-known trademarks, used without the holders' consent, which had been seized in its warehouse. The first-instance decision included a prison sentence, a fine and – with respect to civil liability – the payment of damages to the holders of the infringed trademarks.

02 February 2016

The General Court has confirmed a likelihood of confusion between the word mark KERASHOT and the earlier mark K KERASOL. While the court’s judgment was reasonably orthodox as regards its assessment of the existence of a likelihood of confusion, it is notable for its two-pronged approach to the conceptual, aural and visual analysis of the signs.

26 January 2016

The judgment in <i>Rolex SA v Dragica Poric</i> is significant because it marks the first time that a Slovenian court has ruled that online purchases on a foreign website which are imported into Slovenia constitute infringement.

14 January 2016

In <I>Shoe Branding Europe BVBA v OHIM</I>, the General Court has upheld a decision of the Fifth Board of Appeal of OHIM refusing to register a position mark consisting of “two parallel slanted stripes of equal width positioned on the lower part of panel pants”. Among other things, the court found that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the average consumer would regard the sign as an indication of the origin of the goods and not as a mere decoration.

11 January 2016