Gucci wants to “protect its long-standing property rights, which are the heart of brand identity” against US retailer Forever 21. The accusation is that of “shameless exploitation of the famous and iconic blue-red-blue and green-red-green stripes by the American chain. “The war has been going on for months, and at the end of June, it had entered a more aggressive phase where Americans had filed a formal complaint with a court in the Central District of California regarding three letters of notice received by Gucci from December 2016. Forever 21 claims that they are not breaking the trademark rules, “because Gucci has no legal basis for a legal complaint.” Gucci, on the other hand, has announced that it has “initiated legal proceedings to end this situation”. It filed two cases with the US District Court for the central California district asking for “to reject requests from Forever 21” while opening an action against the same “for deliberate violation of the trademark rights, dilution of the trademark and unfair competition”. Blue-red-blue and green-red-green ribbons,” Gucci explains, “were first introduced in 1951 and 1963: the first US-registered trademark filing of ribbons dates back to 1979.“
California, Gucci brings Forever 21 to the tribunal
