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DUNNES STORES HAS been dealt a significant legal blow as the European Court of Justice has sided with fashion designer Karen Millen in a dispute over a shirt and top.
In a complicated judgment delivered this morning, the ECJ in essence ruled that designs don’t need to be specifically registered to benefit from legal protection.
The seven-year-long dispute will now return to the Irish Supreme Court which had been awaiting today’s judgement.
In 2005, Karen Millen designed blue and brown versions of a striped shirt and a black knitted top. Today’s judgement states that Dunnes Stores representatives purchased examples of those garments from a Karen Millen store.
Dunnes subsequently had copies of the items manufactured outside Ireland and put them on sale in its Irish stores in late 2006.
Karen Millen commenced legal proceedings in 2007 with the most recent judgement coming from Irish High Court in April which also sided with Karen Millen.
Dunnes had argued that Karen Millen hasn’t shown that they own an “unregistered community design” on the clothing items.
The ECJ were asked by the Irish Courts to examine a number of different issues about unregistered community designs. In each of the issues they were asked to look at, their findings were favourable to Karen Millen.
Dunnes appeals the earlier High Court decision which was being held pending today’s judgement.
Read the ECoJ judgement in full here >
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Battle of the budget sweat shop versus the designer sweat shop. The things were probably made in the same factory in Vietnam.
Delighted Karen Millen won. The can’t just expect another organisation to put time and resources into design, and then be allowed to copy it.
That’s what usually happens with high street stores. Dunnes should have changed it slightly.
“That’s what usually happens with high street stores.”
Doesn’t make it OK.
” Dunnes should have changed it slightly”
This attitude is part of the problem. And it’s incorrect to think that minor edits are sufficient, see the recent case with McCambridge/Brennans breads.
The question is, if they didn’t then why.
That’s not really the same. Brennans were fairly clearly intending to confuse people into thinking their brown bread was McCambridges, and an awful lot of people were in fact confused. No one buys Dunnes thinking it’s a Karen Millen.
Virtually all clothes design is derivative and the nature of fashion is that you are trying to get people to follow you. “Changing it a bit” seems to me at least borderline acceptable.
“That’s not really the same. Brennans were fairly clearly intending to confuse people into thinking their brown bread was McCambridges, and an awful lot of people were in fact confused. No one buys Dunnes thinking it’s a Karen Millen.”
What it boild down to is one product attempting to pass itself off as another.
I agree with you, I’m delighted Karen Millen won, but this case wasn’t cantered around passing off, it was cantered around infringement of design rights-Karen Millen’s unregistered community design right. This is an EU protection (I think) and it’s pretty relevant to the fashion industry. Basically it protects your design from copying for 3 years. The initial passing off claim wasn’t pursued because it wasn’t a good argument. For passing off to work, a regular person would have to confuse the two products and buy one thinking it was the other, as in the McCambridge case.
This is common practice in the industry. I worked in shoe design for several years. We would have to make up to eleven changes from the high fashion stuff to avoid a suit
Avoid a suit… boom, boom
Im delighted karren millan won. Dunnes have been gettin away wit scams for far to long. They shud think up their own designs
Every high street retailer is doing the exact same thing only Dunnes were stupid enough to make a carbon copy and KM weren’t going to let it slide. Arcadia Group (Topshop, DP etc), H&M, Primark etc they all trace their clothes back to the fashion houses with tweaks to a certain design…that’s the nature of fast fashion where items would be turned around quickly to imitate catwalk trends. Dunnes should have had more cop on to instruct their buyers to do that as well.
Dunnes are an arrogant lot, hope they get financially hammered over this.
Sarah Morrissey… good choice of random and unconnected photo. This pleases me.
Her accent is like nails on a chalkboard though.
I hear ya Mike. But if I spent a night with her wearing only wax earplugs I wouldn’t complain.
Must have been fairly sh*te designs if Dunnes wanted to sell them
Don’t like Dunne’s money making for mrs Heffernan, also foreign staff don’t get fair hours or pay
have your say