Louis Vuitton Loses Checkerboard Case

Louis Vuitton has lost the right to trademark its Damier checkerboard pattern. The European Union's General Court upheld a previous ruling by the First Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), denying the fashion house's right to call the design its own, saying that it is too commonplace for it to be owned by one brand.

"The checkerboard pattern, as represented in the contested trade mark, was a basic and banal feature composed of very simple elements and that it was well-known that that feature had been commonly used with a decorative purpose in relation to various goods," said the OHIM in 2011, reports WWD adding that, "the contested trade mark, in the absence of features capable of distinguishing it from other representations of checkerboards, was not capable of fulfilling the essential 'identification' or 'origin' function of a trade mark."

The legal battle, however, stretches back much further to 2008 when Louis Vuitton originally registered the trademark. German retailer filed an application to have it declared invalid the following year, which was granted in 2011.

Trademark infringement is a hot topic in the fashion industry at the moment, with  Adidas pursuing Isabel Marant for allegedly copying its Stan Smith trainer designs as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs regarding its autumn/winter 2014 collection and Yves saint Laurent has filed a lawsuit against What About Yves founder over its parody T-shirt "Ain't Laurent Without Yves".

Louis Vuitton has not yet announced if it plans to appeal the European Union's General Court's decision.