Guess and Gucci reach settlement agreement on trademark litigation

By

Robin Driver

Published
Apr 19, 2018

After close to ten years of trademark disputes, Italian luxury house Gucci and LA-based apparel company Guess?, Inc. have announced that they have come to an agreement which will put an end to all the court cases currently involving the two parties.

 
In a joint release, the two companies stated that the agreement “will result in the conclusion of all pending IP litigations and trademark office matters worldwide,” describing it as “an important step for both companies in recognizing the significance of protecting their respective intellectual property portfolios and design creativity.”
 
Gucci first took Guess to federal court in New York in 2009, accusing the brand of unfair competition, counterfeiting and trademark infringement. Gucci took particular issue with the brand’s use of an interlocking “G” logo and repeated diamond motif on a line of footwear and accessories, which the Italian house claimed was an intentional copy of similar elements in its own collections.

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In 2012, the court ruled in favour of Gucci, awarding the Italian luxury brand $4.7 million in damages, although this was a fraction of the $221 million that it had initially expected.
 
Gucci went on to challenge Guess in a number of courts around the world, including in Italy, France, Australia and China, and also took up the issue with the European Union’s intellectual property office.

However, while courts in China and Australia ruled in favor of Gucci, the EU’s general court in Milan sided with Guess.

Gucci is an active defender of its trademarks and also filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 in 2017, alleging that the LA-based apparel brand had copied its striped webbing in colorways of blue-red-blue and green-red-green.
 
Terms of the settlement agreement between Gucci and Guess were not disclosed.