Partner
Trademarks for the Humor Impaired
1/31/17
Louis Vuitton,
My Other Bag,
Copyright,
Trademark,
Parody,
Beverly Berneman
Louis Vuitton found nothing funny about “My Other Bag is a Louis Vuitton”. My Other Bag (“MOB”) manufactured and sold canvas bags that replicate pictures of famous and expensive brands. One of its bags replicated the Louis Vuitton bag. If you look at the picture of the bag, you can see that no one would mistake this for a real Louis Vuitton bag. The bag is meant to parody high priced leather goods and that not everyone can afford them. However, Louis Vuitton did not appreciate the humor. So it sued MOB for trademark infringement, dilution by blurring and copyright infringement. The District Court granted summary judgment to MOB stating that this was an obvious attempt at humor and is not likely to cause confusion. The Second Circuit agreed and affirmed the judgment. The Second Circuit noted that “A parody must convey two simultaneous – and contradictory – messages: that it is the original, but also that it is not the original and is instead a parody”.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. Parody can be the sincerest form of flattery. In fact, in the MOB case, the district court reasoned that the parody was likely to reinforce and enhance the distinctiveness and notoriety of the original brand. Understanding that parody requires a reference back to the original, how can one avoid a claim of infringement? It all boils down to the point of the use of the trademark. For instance, in Starbucks Corp. v. Wolfe’s Borough Coffee, Inc., a competitor was prohibited from using the name Charbucks for its coffee brand in order to compete with the Starbucks coffee brand. The point of Wolfe’s Borough Coffee’s Charbucks name was to compete with Starbucks. In MOB, the point was to make fun of Louis Vuitton’s luxury image.