CONSUMERS

Legal Skirmishes

by

Robb Young

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit

Trademark, employment and censorship law update

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Trademark, employment and censorship law update

One division over at LVMH that must be growing fast is the legal department. Yet again, the French conglomerate has brought a landmark case against an internet giant. Having already tussled with eBay and other online retailers, LVMH claimed partial victory in a long-standing battle against Google. Although the European Court of Justice found that Google’s search engine advertising system, AdWords, does not infringe on trademark rights by allowing rival advertisers to buy keywords that correspond to its registered trademark brands, keyword advertisers must now declare where their goods originate. What’s more, Google can be held liable if there is evidence that it failed to act expeditiously when a trademark infringement does occur.

The case is a major precedent not only because competitors have been profiting but also because grey market and counterfeit products sometimes appear in sponsored search results. The timing is interesting because it coincides with Google’s battle with the Chinese government after it refused to comply with the state’s censorship regime. If Google does shutter its search engine business in China, that would leave the Chinese market leader Baidu wide open to absorb Google’s share. Some analysts worry that this would give luxury brands even less protection from the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet in China. In other news, the Peruvian government’s antitrust regulator has warned local affiliates of Orient Express Hotels that it could be fined $10 million unless they change practices to allow train competitors better access to resorts in Machu Picchu. And in Japan, a Tokyo court dismissed a Prada employee’s accusation that the firm had discriminated against her because of her appearance and that it had asked her to dismiss other employees who were too fat, old or ugly. Prada Japan maintained that the termination was for altogether different and legitimate reasons. The high-profile case was the latest in a string of similar allegations by employees of other luxury fashion brands across several countries.

Sources:
CNN – 23 Mar 10
WWD – 23 Mar 10
New York Times – 21 Mar 10
The Daily Telegraph – 20 Mar 10
Reuters – 16 Mar 10
AFP in Yahoo – 15 Mar 10

Robb Young
Robb Young

Contributor

Luxury & Fashion Business Journalist, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Vogue.com Strategic Consultant, Swiss Textiles Award, Diptrics

CONSUMERS

Legal Skirmishes

by

Robb Young

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit

Trademark, employment and censorship law update

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Trademark, employment and censorship law update

One division over at LVMH that must be growing fast is the legal department. Yet again, the French conglomerate has brought a landmark case against an internet giant. Having already tussled with eBay and other online retailers, LVMH claimed partial victory in a long-standing battle against Google. Although the European Court of Justice found that Google’s search engine advertising system, AdWords, does not infringe on trademark rights by allowing rival advertisers to buy keywords that correspond to its registered trademark brands, keyword advertisers must now declare where their goods originate. What’s more, Google can be held liable if there is evidence that it failed to act expeditiously when a trademark infringement does occur.

The case is a major precedent not only because competitors have been profiting but also because grey market and counterfeit products sometimes appear in sponsored search results. The timing is interesting because it coincides with Google’s battle with the Chinese government after it refused to comply with the state’s censorship regime. If Google does shutter its search engine business in China, that would leave the Chinese market leader Baidu wide open to absorb Google’s share. Some analysts worry that this would give luxury brands even less protection from the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet in China. In other news, the Peruvian government’s antitrust regulator has warned local affiliates of Orient Express Hotels that it could be fined $10 million unless they change practices to allow train competitors better access to resorts in Machu Picchu. And in Japan, a Tokyo court dismissed a Prada employee’s accusation that the firm had discriminated against her because of her appearance and that it had asked her to dismiss other employees who were too fat, old or ugly. Prada Japan maintained that the termination was for altogether different and legitimate reasons. The high-profile case was the latest in a string of similar allegations by employees of other luxury fashion brands across several countries.

Sources:
CNN – 23 Mar 10
WWD – 23 Mar 10
New York Times – 21 Mar 10
The Daily Telegraph – 20 Mar 10
Reuters – 16 Mar 10
AFP in Yahoo – 15 Mar 10

Robb Young
Robb Young

Contributor

Luxury & Fashion Business Journalist, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Vogue.com Strategic Consultant, Swiss Textiles Award, Diptrics

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