Summary Judgement in favor of the Dooney defendants- granted.

This is such an interesting read… I found it here:   Louis Vuitton Malletier v. Dooney & Bourke Inc.

Interesting points and quotes (to me!):

• The court seemed a little bugged at LV at this point, including comments like, “pitted two prominent handbag manufacturers against each other and mired them in seemingly endless and often contentious litigation…”, “shamefully long,” “painfully thin distinctions,” and finally “immature posturing.”
• The court said that LV’s case turned on the likeliness of confusion- obviously Dooney was “inspired” (and they used that word) by the Murakami Multicolore Monogram… but was there a likelihood- or were consumers ever actually confused between the two marks?
• Rather than being confused between the Louis Vuitton MC monogram and the Dooney DB, consumers “call to mind” the LV mark when looking at the DB logo.  So, rather than confusion- they are actually simply reminded of the LV monogram
• “Even the testimony of Louis Vuitton’s director of intellectual property suggests that Louis Vuitton’s infringement claim is not necessarily premised on a likelihood of confusion between it’s products and those of the defendant, but rather Louis Vuitton’s distaste at being associated with the “It Bags”
• The difference in the logos-1)  the symbols included in the LV monogram, 2) the fact that the L and the V are the same color, 3) whereas the Dooney D and B are different colors, 4) the crispness of the LV monogram, 5) the almost blurred, look of the DB monogram, 6) the largeness of the LV mono as compared to the DB- all factored into their decision that the DB monogram may have been inspired by the LV mono- but it isn’t confusingly similar.  Someone wearing a DB “it” bag won’t confuse others as to think that she’s carrying a Louis Vuitton.  They aren’t sufficiently similar.
• Louis Vuitton spent more money advertising the 2003 launch of the Multicolore line than they had at any other year in their history
• “The evidence demonstrates that rather than eroding the stregnth of Louis Vuitton’s mark, some consumers that made the mental associaion between the marks at issue directed any “offense” they might have felt from the association towards the defendant (Dooney) rather than the plaintiff (LV)”  (In other words people could easily tell who was copying who- and it bugged a lot of us.)

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