Louis Vuitton requests en banc rehearing in My Other Bag dispute
French luxury fashion company Louis Vuitton has filed an appeal for an en banc rehearing of its trademark and copyright dispute with My Other Bag (MOB).
Louis Vuitton filed its suit against MOB at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on January 5. The appeals court ruled on the case in December.
The suit centres on a decision made at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in January last year.
Louis Vuitton had filed a trademark claim against MOB and argued that a bag that featured the company’s Toile Monogram design, as well other bags, diluted its famous brand.
The French company also argued that MOB’s product infringed its copyright.
In his ruling, District Judge Jesse Furman said that MOB’s tote bags are “just as obviously a joke, and one does not necessarily need to be familiar with the ‘my other car’ trope to get the joke or to get the fact that the totes are meant to be taken in jest”, according to Leagle.com, a provider of US court decisions and opinions.
The court rejected the luxury brand’s complaint that MOB had infringed its intellectual property rights.
Later in January 2016, Louis Vuitton filed an appeal against the ruling and, in December last year, the Second Circuit panel affirmed the district court’s ruling.
Louis Vuitton has requested an en banc rehearing of its dispute with MOB, arguing that the Second Circuit based its finding of a parody “solely on its subjective view that the products of defendant-appellee MOB” were obviously a joke.
The fashion company added that the court “made no mention of the record evidence” that established that “consumers did not perceive MOB’s products as a joke, or even social commentary, but rather as a fashion accessory to complement, or even substitute for, the LV bags they owned or wanted”.
Louis Vuitton said that the panel’s decision conflicted with the court’s prior decisions, which included Starbucks v Wolfe’s Borough Coffee and Harley-Davidson v Grottanelli, and “essentially rewrites and expands the definition of parody in a manner not consistent with existing precedent”.
Second, Louis Vuitton argued that the court’s decision conflicts with US Supreme Court decisions that held that, under trademark law, commercial impression is a fact for the jury, not the court.
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