Christian Dior loses ‘savage’ trademark dispute at UKIPO
Christian Dior has lost its fight to prevent a registration of a trademark, when the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) found against the luxury brand’s arguments on Tuesday, August 4.
The dispute arose when beauty blogger and entrepreneur Adele Savage applied to register ‘Pretty Savage’ as a UK trademark in September 2019 for goods including soaps, wax melts, and other bathing products. Christian Dior filed a notice of opposition, seeking refusal of the application in its entirety because it had trademarked ‘sauvage’ for perfumery products in 2014 including a men’s line of perfume promoted by movie star Johnny Depp, alongside with other cosmetic products.
The company claimed that given that the goods and marks were similar, there was a strong likelihood of confusion among the general public. It also held that the disputed mark would benefit from its reputation in the marketplace and would take “unfair advantage of, or would be detrimental to, the reputation and distinctive character” of Christian Dior’s mark.
The UKIPO, however, found that there was “at most a low degree of conceptual similarity between the mark” because the the applicant’s mark comprised two English words that carried “a clear and immediate playful concept using English words signifying a good-looking wild person, or else someone or thing that is quite/rather wild/fierce”.
By contrast, it held that Christian Dior’s mark was a single, non-English word, with “no real concept to the average consumer” and that it was unlikely to lead to any direct or indirect confusion.
The UKIPO also found that the use of the applied-for mark would not be a misrepresentation under the law of “passing off” and allowed the registration of the disputed trademark. Christian Dior was ordered to pay Adele Savage costs.
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