Fashionista Magazine recently featured Thompson LLP’s Ben Thompson in an article about Chanel’s recent victory in a trademark infringement suit against a luxury resale boutique, which is serving as a cautionary tale for both brands and resellers alike. In “What Can Fashion Brands Do to Protect Themselves in the Secondhand Market?,” Ben warned that companies need to be proactive about protecting their trademarks if they want to effectively counteract the secondhand resale market.
“If the market understands you’re not [protecting your trademark] and you have a popular brand or product, the underside of the market will exploit and capitalize on that,” Ben said. He added that if brands are negligent in protecting their image, courts may be less likely to take future trademark complaints seriously.
Ben focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and general transactional matters, often based in or involving complex intellectual property issues.
The full article is available here.