In a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio, Abercrombie claims a fragrance under the singer’s “Sasha Fierce” label “poses a likelihood of confusion” with the retailer’s own “Fierce” brand.

It said such confusion could deprive it of control over a trademark it has used since 2002, and perhaps cost it sales. The lawsuit seeks to halt potential trademark infringement, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices.

Abercrombie & Fitch have a perfume called “Fierce” that they use to perfume their store and their clothes, they also let customers purchase it to prolong that freshly bought smell.

Beyonce recently released a 2 CD concept album “I am… Sasha Fierce” where one CD features a nice and lovely Beyonce and the other features the sassy diva Sasha Fierce.

Is there a chance someone could get confused over the two brands? Quite possibly but I don’t think that’s enough to grant Abercrombie the monopoly to use what is such a trendy descriptive term.

Think of it this way, if I created a perfume called “Pretty” should that stop everyone from using “Pretty” in their perfume labels? That would mean that no one could use “Pretty Sweet”, “Pretty Flowers”, “Pretty Ordinary” as trademarks for any future perfumes (as long I kept paying my trademark renewals fees which could be eternity).

Such a commonly used single word shouldn’t be accepted for trademark registration in the first place, it being a word that other traders could quite reasonably and quite foreseeably want to use. Desirable descriptive terms go beyond the term “perfume” and “eau de cologne” and “eau de toilette”, there are a limited number of adjectives  at a particular time (obviously influenced by trends) that are commonly used with a product to express desirable features.  I don’t think that some company should be the only company to be use “Pretty” – if they wish to have trademark protection, they should be required to include more immediately distinctive information that doesn’t tie up such a valuable term, for example “Pretty by Coty” could coexist alongside “Pretty by Revlon”.

“Fierce” is a buzz word of this past decade, much like “Groovy” was of the 60s. For it’s target market, it’s just as a desirable term as “pretty” (actually more so because it’s trendy and not naff like the latter). It’s my feeling is that if you go with a purely descriptive (and simple) term like “pretty” or “fierce”, you open yourself up to competition with others on that term.  The law shouldn’t be there to help protect that monopoly.

From Beyonce sued by Abercrombie & Fitch over fragrance [Yahoo News via Reuters]

Fierce Ownership is a post from: Fair Uses

There was a strange little tale about Puma and Adidas in the papers yesterday. They were founded by two brothers who had a falling out and each took half of the town with them.

Herzogenaurach was a town split into footwear factions. Townfolk were marked as adidas or Puma people. Intermarriage was out of the question.

The enmity can be traced to a spat in the 1940s between two local shoemakers – brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler – who fell out and set up rival companies, adidas and Puma, on either side of the town’s river.

The pair had made shoes together in the 1920s in their mother’s kitchen, trading as Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

But the relationship soured and Rudolf left to set up Puma, and Adolf renamed the company adidas. The split spawned decades of fierce business rivalry, split a town in two, and led to the establishment of two of the best-recognised sporting brands in the world…

“Some of the stories you hear are just mind-blowing,” Puma marketing manager Filip Trulsson said.”Puma people not marrying adidas people, adidas and Puma gangs in the schools, pubs loyal to one firm refusing to serve workers from the other, it’s all gone on here,” he told The Independent in 2006.

Herzogenaurach had become nicknamed “the town of bent necks”, because townfolk would not strike a conversation with a stranger until they had first looked down at the shoes that person was wearing, said author Barbara Smit, who chronicled the history of adidas and Puma in her book Pitch Invasion.

“The town was really split in two like a sort of mini-Berlin with this little river as a partition in the middle,” she told German broadcaster Deutsche Well.

Fortunately for the townsfolk, “The rift in the town also appeared to be have mended. Teens in the town square could be seen hanging together wearing Puma, adidas and even Nike, The Independent wrote.”

It’s an interesting history behind Adidas, one of the more litigious sportwear manufacturers. The comany has racked up a number of trademark disputes over the years with the upshot that it now appears to own the placement of three (and even two) stripes on clothing. That is a subject that deserves its own post another day.

Source: Town divided by tale of two shoes (Sydney Morning Herald)

A Tale of Two Trademarks is a post from: Fair Uses