By Rebecca Kay
This Tuesday, members of DLA Piper’s Fashion, Retail and Design Group assembled in Washington with retail clients from around the globe, for a working lunch entitled “Around the retail world in sixty minutes: Reflecting the top branding issues for retailers in 2012”. As well as being a fantastic opportunity to catch up with industry peers, the event was a fascinating insight into topical issues and concerns.
Following welcomes from Ann Ford (Chair of the US Trademark, Copyright and Media Practice) and Ruth Hoy (Co-Chair of the Fashion, Retail and Design Group), we were taken on a whistlestop global tour, stopping along the way at: the Ninth Circuit’s findings on copyright misuse in Omega v Costco (Gina Durham, Chicago), new advantages for brand owners entering the Italian franchising market (Giangiacomo Olivi, Milan), options for businesses using a designer’s name as their brand (Ruth Hoy, London), recent decisions of the French supreme court in the context of proving use of a trade mark (Karine Disdier-Mikus, Paris), the approach of the Federal German Patent Court to the protection of fashion ornamentation (Saskia Lais, Cologne), possibilities for protecting retail store formats (Edward Chatterton, Hong Kong) and anti-counterfeiting strategies in China (Yan Zhao, Shanghai).
The event was hosted by DLA Piper as part of the International Trademark Association (INTA) Annual General Meeting in Washington. To coincide with INTA, the Fashion, Retail and Design Group has published a special edition of Law à la Mode, our quarterly legal magazine distributed to our industry clients and friends all over the world. Click here to read the magazine. If you have thoughts or comments, please contact us on fashion@dlapiper.com.