This week saw the end of a three-year-long Federal lawsuit in which luxury goods manufacturer Gucci America, Inc. (“Gucci”) had been suing its slightly-less-tony (yet well-respected) competitor Guess?, Inc. (“Guess”) for numerous causes of action, including several for trademark infringement. While Gucci was nominally victorious, obtaining an injunction and over $4.5 million in damages, the victory seemed small in light of over $100.0 million in damages that Gucci had sought.
Below is a picture showing (at left) a Gucci sneaker compared with the accused Guess? sneaker (at right).
Gucci (left) Guess (right)
The suit ultimately produced a comprehensive opinion of over one hundred pages in length. Because the author of this post, at press time, is still reading the opinion – and because rumor has it that Gucci is going to attack Guess in another forum – this post is about to end; look for further news in upcoming posts on the Gucci v. Guess controversy. Meanwhile, ardent Fashion Law Center readers are encouraged to read the court’s opinion by clicking here.
This is really interesting lawsuit. Whenever I saw one of Guess products, I have always wondered if it was okay for Guess to use similar logo as Gucci does.
Sometimes, many people have seen Guess mark mistakenly as Gucci, including myself.
I’m not sure about if Gucci should have been awarded over $100 millions of dollar, but I’m glad that Gucci has won the battle and received $4 million.
This should be a big win to Gucci, not just for the money, because now that Guess will not be able to use those logo images on their products anymore.