The Perry battle: Katy vs Katie

Would you believe it? There's more than one Katie/y Perry. The US pop starlet (famed equally for her annoyingly catchy pop tunes and bizarre fashion sense) Katy Perry (real name Katheryn Hudson) isn't happy. And here's why.

Australian fashion designer Katie Perry (real name Katie Perry - but sometimes Katie Howell) filed for an Australian trade mark last September (i.e. when Katy Perry had just exploded onto the music scene) to protect her name for clothing. Katy (with a -y) also plans to file for an Australian trade mark. News reports have it that US Katy has asked Australian Katie to stop using her own name for her clothing range, withdraw her trade mark application, and other relief you would expect from a cease and desist letter. Oh, and she's filed an opposition against the designer's mark. The US singer has since posted on her blog to say that she isn't suing Katie Perry - but simply putting her on notice of the American's rights (who is also filing for Australian trade mark protection), but the opposition is yet to be withdrawn.

So here is the issue. At what point are you not entitled to trade under your own name? In the UK, a registered trade mark is not infringed by a person's use of his own name, provided that the use is "in accordance with honest practices in industrial or commercial matters" (and, of course, that last bit is a grey area...).

This dispute brings home the importance of protecting your brand by securing trade mark registrations early on. Wait until your business has taken off and you may be too late if someone else has already registered your name as a trade mark. Whilst logic (and a perfect world) would assume that anyone should be entitled to use their own name, the reality is that a trade mark registration can prevent this. Designers (or celebrities who put their names to clothing or accessory ranges) are often caught out because they are not using their name "personally" - but instead, through a company. Although UK law has an "own name defence", this only applies if you are using your mark in your own name - and not through a company. Realistically, few designers operate in this way.

Fashionista wonders how this will play out before the Australian trade mark registry, particularly as the Australian designer has identified herself as Katie Howell on her trade mark application. Is this a case of possible co-existence between the two Kates, or will infringement successfully be argued? In which case, given that trade marks are national rights, which of the two Kates will be the infringing one in Australia?

Cookie monster still threatening

Most fashion websites use cookies or similar devices. Usually this is for no more sinister a purpose than to enable users to navigate through the site and to track forwards and backwards at the customer check out. They are increasingly also being used to facilitate affiliate and behavioural marketing techniques to be deployed.

Until now, website operators have simply been required to tell users about the existence of cookies and what they are used for (usually contained somewhere in the privacy policy) and to enable users to disable them through their browser settings.

Potential changes to this legislation which are being discussed by the European institutions would greatly increase this burden however. The draft provisions require operators to obtain users' "consent" to their use. One of the problems with this change is that it is not clear what is meant by consent. There is a real risk however that it could be construed as requiring an "opt in" prior consent. This would be very uncommercial for websites and the advertising industry and is it really protecting individuals in an appropriate manner? The last thing Fashionista wants when trying to race to the latest sales bargains on her favourite sites, is to be confronted with lots of pop up boxes about cookies.

The European institutions aren't going to be discussing this change again until mid September but hopefully this will give some more time for industry lobbying to ensure a proportionate and commercial approach is taken.

Amazon to launch footwear site

Today Retail Week reported that Amazon is to launch a standalone footwear site in the UK following the success of its Endless site in the US and Javari site in Japan. Although Amazon has been selling footwear on its main site since 2007, it is thought that the new site will have a broader product range, which will drive sales. One big advantage for consumers is that the new site will provide next-day delivery and free returns.

Fashionista's friends at Verdict conducted a survey recently in which 29.4 % of respondents said they purchased fashion items from Amazon. Consulting director Neil Saunders said that Amazon's new launch was likely to pose a threat to existing retailers. "The shoe retailers have not got as strong an online offer as they could have," he said. "Amazon is really stealing a march on them. It brings to the market a very recognised and trusted brand."

Given Fashionista's shoe fetish, anything which increases shoe shopping opportunities has to be welcome news!

Fashionista congratulates...

Christopher Bailey (Creative Director of Burberry)
Jeff Banks (Designer amongst other roles),
Professor Frances Marie Corner (Head of London College of Fashion)
Natalie Massenet (Founder and Chair of Net-A-Porter.com)
Safia Laila Minney (Founder and Director of People Tree)

...who have all been honoured in the Queen's 2009 Birthday Honours List for services to the Fashion Industry and, also for services to Charity and services to Fair Trade for Jeff Banks and Safia Minney respectively.

Fashionista is thrilled to see that leaders in her favourite industry are being recognised so highly for the work they do - and across such a broad spectrum: design; education; charity; sales; and ethical sourcing to bring green issues to light.

This is such a great honour and illustrates the importance of the fashion industry to our economy now more than ever. Hopefully this will encourage aspiring young designers to keep doing what they do to help: their image; the image of those they dress; and the image of the UK fashion industry more generally. Fashionista remembers a time when, looking at "fashion", you would only look to France and Italy. Fashionista holds her head up proudly as we are now leading the charge, with so many British designers and retailers headlining the industry. Congratulations to all.

LFN "Trading Online" event

Fashionista loves any event which enables her to combine her love of fashion with her love of wine and so tottered all the way to Kentish Town on Thursday evening to attend the London Fashion Network event "Trading Online: Getting Noticed" at the Prince of Wales pub.

The panel of industry experts included Stephen Pratley (Shine Marketing), Richard Thorpe (Screen Pages Ltd), Joel Vertes (Olswang) and Barnaby Brown (motelrocks.com) who discussed a number of ways of optimising a website so that you attract traffic to your website and keep people coming back for more. The added bonus was that the event was chaired by Leon Bailey-Green - Fashionista loves his blog!

Some of the more interesting points which came out of the discussion were:

1. The landscape of "paid search" results has changed dramatically since the Google AdWords policy change. It is now possible to buy a 3rd party's trade mark as a keyword, so that when someone types that mark into a Google search engine, your website appears as a sponsored link.


2. Questions were raised as to whether this was "legal". Clearly, it is allowed under the Google AdWords policy, but the question of whether it is a trade mark infringement is currently awaiting determination by the European Court of Justice. There are a number of pending references to the ECJ on this very topic so we will have to wait to see what they conclude.


3. The importance of protecting your brand from the outset was emphasised and a good tip was make sure that your brand name wasn't overly descriptive as this makes it harder to protect - the best brand names in terms of being able to protect them are those that are arbitrary and have little to do with the actual product. Registering the trade marks is crucial as well as buying the key domain names in the .uk and .com space.


4. Recovering domain names which infringe on your trade mark is not as difficult as you might think and there are various ways of doing this - depending on the rights that you have and what the domain name is being used for.

Fashionista picked up some useful information and met some fabulous people - roll on the next event!

Facebook Username Change - from Saturday 13 June

Fashionista has been made aware of Facebook's recent announcement that from today trade mark holders can record their trade marks with Facebook to prevent the registration of these trade marks as usernames. Their announcement was as follows :

"On Tuesday, June 9, Facebook, Inc., a social networking website company based in the United States, publicly announced that beginning Saturday, June 13th at 12:01 a.m. U.S. EDT, users of the Facebook website will be allowed for the first time to create personalized URLs for their Facebook pages (facebook.com/yourname). Facebook, Inc. has created an online form for rights owners interested in preventing their trademarks from being registered as usernames by Facebook users. Trademark owners can reserve their trademark on the Facebook platform by submitting relevant information to Facebook, Inc. through their trademark protection contact form, available at http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights. If you have further questions or concerns, please contact Facebook directly or see its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, available at http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=896. "

Although the registration page implies that a trade mark registration (rather than application) is required, there is very little information provided as to eligibility or the evidence of the trade mark right required. Further, the online form requires the trade mark to be inserted together with its registration number, but without any box to insert the relevant jursidication.

While the form may not be perfect, it only takes 5 minutes to complete and will, according to Facebook, prevent a third party from incorporating your brand into their Facebook username. On this basis , it seems to Fashionista that it is worth spending the 5 minutes needed to register your brand and prevent someone else from getting there first!

Cat fight over catsuit

Thanks to Vicki Day for getting Fashionista hooked on the recent posts by Susie Bubble on her fabulous blog Style Bubble. For those who have missed the furore, Susie recently posted some photos of herself trying on a catsuit in Pam Hogg's London boutique which did not go down at all well with the designer's people who subsequently requested that the images be removed from the blog.

Hogg's people apparently argued that Susie had violated intellectual property rights by posting a photo of an item that she hadn't bought, but Fashionista suspects that the real issue was that the designer wanted to keep a tight rein over the publication of images of her products as, to be fair, most designers do. However, control can only go so far and given the corresponding negative publicity that Pam Hogg has attracted via Susie's blog (413 commentators have expressed their opinion on the Bubble's follow up post "Hogg Roasted" of 2 June 2009 and most are anti-Hogg comments), Fashionista suspects that Pam Hogg's people are wishing they hadn't taken the matter quite so seriously - talk about a storm in a catsuit!
Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net