Founded in 1854, the Louis Vuitton company began on the Rue Neuve des Capucines in Paris.135 Mr. Louis Vuitton began with selling light-weight, flat-bottomed trunks made of trianon canvas. These bags were featured in the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris.136In order to protect his bags against copiers,Vuitton changed his design to feature brown and beige stripes in 1876. Ten years later, the first Louis Vuitton store opened in London.137Again to prevent copiers, Vuitton created a canvas pattern with a logo reading «marque L. Vuitton déposée,» or «L. Vuitton regis-tered trademark.»138After Louis’death in 1892, his son, Georges Vuit-ton, launched the signature Monogram Canvas with the interlocking beige L and V initials interspersed with small flowers and quatrefoils on a brown background.139In 1913, the company opened the largest tra-vel-goods store in the world (at the time) on the Champs-Elysees. Smal-ler stores were also opened in New York, Bombay,Washington, London, Alexandria and Buenos Aires.
In the 1950 s, the company began incorporating leather into most pro-ducts ranging from small wallets and purses to larger pieces of luggage.
In 1959, it revamped the signature monogram pattern in order to make the material suppler and to incorporate it into the new purses and wallets launched by the company. A few decades later, the company expanded into the Asian market, opening stores in Taipei,Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul.
In 1987, the conglomerate company Louis Vuitton Möet Hennessy (LVMH) was created.140 In 1997, rising design star Marc Jacobs was named artistic director and became responsible for the brand’s first foray into clothing lines for both women and men. In 2001, Jacobs led an initia-tive to branch out into jewelry with a charm bracelet featuring the «LV»
initials.141This was followed by the Tambour watch collection in 2002.
135 Designer History,History of Louis Vuitton 1854–1936, https://mljuddarts.com/his tory-of-louis-vuitton-1854–1936.
136 Id.
137 id.
138 The mark consists of the flower, Registration No. 2177828 (U. S.).
139 The mark consists of the L and V interlocking with flowers dispersed, Registration No. 0297594 (U. S.).
140 LVMH, Group Milestones, available: https://www.lvmh.com/group/milestones-lvmh/1593-to-the-present/, accessed on August 22, 2019.
141 LVMH, Houses, Fashion and Leather Goods, Marc Jacobs, available: https://www.
The Louis Vuitton company holds trademark registrations throughout the world. Notably, it holds registrations including the distinctive
«LV» initials, the flowers, and the quatrefoils on the signature monogram canvas.142 The company has also attempted to register shape trade-marks.143 While it has not always been successful in registering these marks, the company has been able to do so in certain markets. The Phi-lippines, for example, have allowed the company to register a three-di-mensional bag trademark.144Singapore, France and Spain have also al-lowed for the registration on the three-dimensional object.145 Certain bags are specifically trademarked, with the «Neverfull» product line en-joying trademark registration in several countries as recently as January of 2018.146
By its own admission, Louis Vuitton is an active enforcer of its trademark rights. The brand has faced infringement from a number of sources over the years. However, despite its aggressive enforcement, the company has lost several legal battles.
In the U. S., for example, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ru-led that the plush dog toys which mimicked Louis Vuitton handbag de-signs and prints were not likely to cause confusion nor to dilute the trade-mark distinctiveness.147The defendant, Haute Diggity Dog, a national retailer of (mostly parody-based) pet products, pointed out that the price difference between the products and the fact that they would never be sold in the same stores would be enough to distinguish the two from any possible confusion. Moreover, the court found that the dog toys were an obvious parody of the Louis Vuitton trademarks.148Another notable
lvmh.com/houses/fashion-leather-goods/marc-jacobs/, accessed on August 22, 2019.
142 WIPO Global Brand Database, available: http://www.wipo.int/branddb/en/#, ac-cessed on August 22, 2019.
143 MARKUSB. BÖLLING, Case Law–A New Dimension to the Restrictions on 3D Trade-marks, available: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=31947962-a247–
411a-b86b-939a7106a293, accessed on August 22, 2019.
144 The mark consists of the Louis Vuitton bag, Registration No. 1341041 (Philippines).
145 Bag with Flower Pattern, Registration No. T9001069B (Singapore); Bag Handbag, Registration No. T9000760H (Singapore); The flowers and the letters are in yellow on a dark brown background of the bag, Registration No. 1548349 (France).
146 Neverfull, Registration No. ID M000215974 (Indonesia).
147Louis Vuitton Malletier S. A. v. Haute Diggity Dog, LLC, 507 F.3d 252 (4th Cir.
2007).
148Id. at 256.
U. S. case was the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016 in the dispute between Louis Vuitton and My Other Bag.149Here, the court again looked to the parody defense in an obvious joke bag pro-claiming that «my other bag is a…» (insert high-end label), inspired by the novelty bumper stickers common at the time.150The court found that My Other Bag’s obvious attempt at humor was not likely to cause confu-sion for the consumer– if anything, the court said, the parody would only function as reinforcement and enhancement of the notoriety of the famous brand.151
On the other hand, the company was successful in South Korea, where a fried chicken company also attempted to poke fun at the brand.152In par-ticular, the company blocked the use by a restaurant of its signature monogram pattern in the wrappers on its food offerings.
The company also lost several non-parody cases in the past years. For ex-ample, the CJEU denied Louis Vuitton’s appeal of the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) rejection for the registration of the figurative sign of a lock that adorned many of the brand’s purses and jewelry pro-ducts.153Although the mark had been registered in 2005, Louis Vuitton was brought to court over the mark in 2010, where the General Court held that «the mark could not be registered in respect of goods that had a locking device unless the mark could be regarded as departing sig-nificantly from the norm or customs of the sector that it fulfilled its essen-tial function of indicating origin.»154The CJEU denied the appeal and the cross-appeal Louis Vuitton raised, holding that the General Court was correct in saying that a «figurative mark constituted in part by the shape of the product which it designates is not independent of the appearance of the product it designates in so far as the relevant public perceives it, im-mediately and without particular thought, as a representation of a parti-cularly interesting or attractive detail of the product in question rather than as an indication of its commercial origin.»155
149 Louis Vuitton Malletier S. A. v. My Other Bag, Inc., 156 F. Supp. 3d 425 (2016).
150 Id. at 431.
151 Id.
152 Louis Vuitton: Don’t Be a Chicken, available: https://trademark.eu/louis-vuitton-dont-be-a-chicken/, accessed on August 22, 2019.
153 Case C-97/12 P,Louis Vuitton Malletier v. OHIM, 2014 EURLex 62012CJ0097.
154 Case R-1590/2008 1,Louis Vuitton Malletier v. OHIM, 2010.
155 Case C-97/12 P,Louis Vuitton Malletier v. OHIM, 2014 EURLex 62012CJ0097 (quoting Case R-1590/2008 1, Louis Vuitton Malletier v. OHIM, 2010).
Louis Vuitton also applied for registration of the Damier checkerboard