Oh No! What If More Than One Shoemaker Makes Shoes With Red Soles?

from the the-horror.-the-horror. dept

While we still don't have the damaging and totally unnecessary fashion copyright, fashion designers still try to use other methods to lock up their designs. Apparently, shoe designer Christian Louboutin* felt that trademarking high heel shoes with red soles could block competitors. However, in a court test of this theory, a judge has pointed out that Louboutin probably never should have received the trademark in the first place, and refused to block others from having red soles:

“Because in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition,” Judge Marrero ruled, “the court finds that Louboutin is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection, even if it has gained enough protection in the market to have secondary meaning.”

But now, how will any fashion designer be inspired to try other color soles?

* Just as a quick note, for reasons that go way beyond my understanding, it seems that one of (if not) the largest comment spammers we get are people trying to sell (probably counterfeit) Christian Louboutin shoes. Talk about bad targeting by spammers. This is not exactly a Louboutin audience. However, we get hundreds of such comments a day. Our spam filters use a few heuristics to determine what is spam and what is not and while it's not definite, there's at least a high likelihood that if you mention "Louboutin" in your comment that it will be held by the spam filter. We'll endeavor to free this as quickly as possible. Or just don't mention it in your comment at all, and hopefully it'll get through...

Filed Under: christian louboutin, red shoes, trademark
Companies: christian louboutin