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26 March 2018Patents

Kim Kardashian West and Urban Outfitters settle ‘selfie’ patent suit

Kim Kardashian West and retailer Urban Outfitters are seeking to dismiss a patent complaint after coming to a settlement with California-based SnapLight.

The three parties submitted a motion requesting the dispute be dismissed with prejudice at the US District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division, on Friday, Mach 23.

California-based SnapLight, which develops and sells phone cases, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Kardashian West’s company Kimsaprincess and fashion store Urban Outfitters in July last year.

The suit accused competitor LuMee of producing cases which infringe SnapLight’s proprietary lighting technology. Kardashian West is an official partner of LuMee and has designed cases for the brand, and Urban Outfitters is a retailer of the phone cases.

SnapLight claimed it had an exclusive licence to use US patent number 8,428,644, an “Integrated lighting accessory and case for a mobile phone device”, owned by Hooshmand Harooni. It facilitates selfie photos by providing bright lighting.

The complaint said that, despite having “superior, patented products”, SnapLight has struggled to compete in the market due to Kardashian West’s product influence and LuMee’s infringement.

Kardashian West has been branded the “queen of selfies” by The New York Times, and also released a coffee table photobook called “ Kim Kardashian Selfish” which features a selection of her selfies.

“Simply being endorsed by an influencer like Kardashian West leads to numerous sales regardless of whether or not the endorsed product infringes the IP rights of others,” the suit said.

SnapLight had asked the court to enjoin Kardashian West from promoting and using the selfie cases, and sought compensation worth $100 million in lost profits and royalties.

In response, Kardashian West said the suit had “no merit”.

According to the request filed at the court last week, the parties have settled their dispute. The motion requested that SnapLight’s complaint be dismissed with prejudice, and that the court order each party to bear its own costs.

On March 20, the court ordered the dismissal of the matter as requested.

Speaking to WIPR,  Brent Lorimer of Workman Nydegger, who represented LuMee in the dispute, said LuMee had previously brought an action against SnapLight at the US District Court for District of Delaware in 2016.

It accused SnapLight of infringing patent number 9,464,796, relating to mobile cases which light up to facilitate selfies.

According to Lorimer, SnapLight initiated two California lawsuits—one involving Kardashian West and another one leveraging the same allegations against LuMee—in “retaliation”.

In the Delaware court, LuMee was granted an injunction against SnapLight over the ‘796 patent on March 23.

LuMee also filed a motion to stay the action related to Kardashian West, as per the ‘customer suit’ exception. Under the exception, litigation brought against or by the manufacturer of the goods takes precedence over a suit by the patent owner against customers of the manufacturer.

The motion to stay the Kardashian West case was granted, and LuMee and Kardashian West then filed a motion to dismiss the infringement claims made by SnapLight on the basis of lack of standing.

Lorimer explained that after the motion to dismiss for lack of standing was filed, the companies agreed to settle the matter.

The action in Delaware was also resolved and the Californian court dismissed the SnapLight v Lumee case.

The Kardashian family has frequently hit IP headlines over the years.

In January 2018, the Kardashian sisters, Kim, Kourtney, and Khloé, applied to extend the deadline to file an opposition in relation to US trademark number 87,426,433, for ‘Kardashian Bakery & Grill’, owned by a Michigan-based individual.

Just before SnapLight filed the patent infringement suit last year, Kardashian West was The complaint accused Kardashian West of trademark infringement after the launch of her cosmetics line ‘KKW Beauty’.

Kardashian West’s half-sister Kylie Jenner was also sued during that period. Sara Pope, a UK-based artist, accused Jenner of copyright infringement in relation to a photograph of a pair of neon-coloured lips.

Earlier in 2017, a UK-based photography company filed a copyright claim against Khloé after she shared a photograph owned by the company on her Instagram page.

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More on this story

Patents
1 August 2017   Kim Kardashian West has found herself at the centre of another IP lawsuit, just days after being sued for trademark infringement.
Patents
2 August 2017   Kim Kardashian West has hit back at a patent infringement lawsuit filed by a company called Snaplight, claiming it has “no merit”.
Trademarks
21 February 2019   Kim Kardashian West is suing UK women’s clothing company Missguided for trademark infringement, alleging that it used her name and image to sell products without her permission.