Who Wins The Trademark Rights Of Designer Christian Louboutin Red Shoe?

This Tuesday, it lasted for a year and a half, and the highest legal disputes in the fashion circle were: the top shoe brand Christian Louboutin sued the Yves Saint Laurent infringement case and ended it with a white flag: YSL announced the abandonment of the appeal against Louboutin and claimed that she had won the conclusion of "knot theory". However, because of " Red Shoe The debate triggered by the controversy is far from over. Who is the winner of this war of rights?

　　 Designer Where is the boundary of safeguarding rights? I'm afraid that even Christian Louboutin himself didn't think clearly when he invented scarlet soles. "Red shoes are like lipsticks coated with shoes, which makes people feel like kissing." With the bare toes, women become sexy. In order to defend its provocative design, Louboutin applied for a trademark right in September 2007 (the official entry into force in 2008) to ensure that the scarlet sole of the brand was not copied.

Who expected that the application of trademark rights against color itself would be perilous. Many brands would use colored shoes, including red with different colors, on a particular season or a certain type of shoes. Compared with the shoes of Tribute, Palais and WooDStock designed for the French fashion house YSL, the red paints with the same appearance as Louboutin have appeared. So Louboutin made an uncourteous lawsuit and brought YSL to court. Manhattan The federal court demanded that it be prohibited from selling such red bottled high-heeled shoes and asking for compensation of at least 1 million dollars. At first, the judge did not support Louboutin, but began to question its trademark ownership of red shoe. Thus, a continuous seesaw battle between appeals and anti appeals began. The personal relationship between Christian Louboutin and PPR (YSL parent company) chairman and CEO Fran ois-Henri Pinault is also facing a breakdown. Louboutin, the YSL counterclaim, thinks that its trademark rights should not be enforced on the "red shoes". "If Louboutin provoking our designer's dignity again, YSL has the right to propose a lawsuit to cancel its trademark right." YSL lawyer David Bernstein showed no sign of weakness to the media.

Thank God, the court's final decision has left a step for both sides: Christian Louboutin owns the trademark rights of red shoe, but as a restriction, it is not infringing when the shoe is red as a whole. YSL has the right to continue to produce monochromatic shoes, and can re sell the YSL red shoes that have been put back to the retailers by Louboutin earlier. As for whether the French fashion house will sell the red shoes again, Bernstein claims, "YSL has made red its main color since its foundation day, which is part of the brand tradition. So I can't tell you whether it will happen again. But this case has clearly stated that YSL can sell shoes with monochrome shoes, whenever we like. The reason why YSL decided to end the lawsuit is to focus on business and creative design, not to let designers be in danger because of color. " This passage is obviously for Louboutin. The latter fear that the red shoes sold by the defendant will mislead consumers and infringe their goodwill. In fact, after the renamed Saint Laurent has a new direction under the leadership of the new creative director Hedi Slimane, it will avoid the feather feather of the Louboutin in the production of shoes.

After all, besides the red soles, Louboutin shoes have other sexy details that can not be duplicated. From an economic point of view, there is no need to get to the bottom of the loss that can not be proved. The truce between the two sides is a wonderful and reasonable curtain call for this high-risk drama story. From the point of view of maintaining fashion copyright, this lawsuit is of great significance. It involves fashion, law, celebrities and consumers. The participation of public opinions has changed the whole case: it has been plagiarized and never been surpassed, which is perhaps the most ideal destination for designers.