Victoria's Secret Sues Perfume Company for Trade Dress & Trademark Infringement.

It’s no secret that Victoria's Secret has been filing a fair share of lawsuits recently. This time, Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works is suing Preferred Fragrance and Fragrance Acquisitions for trade dress and trademark infringement of smell alike perfumes.

The legal dispute claims that Preferred fragrance violated some of the Victoria’s Secret Fantasies collection of fragrances, by selling fragrances that resemble the trade dress of some of Victoria’s perfumes. According to court documents it has been reported that the company copied scents including Vanilla Lace, Coconut Passion, Mango Temptation and Love Spell.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants "Defendants have intentionally encroached on [Victoria's Secret's] rights in a concerted, ongoing attempt to hijack the substantial brand awareness and goodwill associated with the plaintiff's products and to cause confusion among the buying public,"

Preferred Fragrance "the leading distributor of designer-inspired perfumes," has been subject to trade dress infringement cases in the past. In 2013, the Goss-IPgirl noted here, Prada claimed that Preferred Fragrance copied its perfume "Prada Candy."

        

As the Goss-IPgirl has noted before, generally, it is not illegal to create or distribute smell-alike perfumes. In terms of copyright, the chemical composition of perfumes is not treated as a tangible form of expression to claim copyright protection. Instead, disputes between the perfume brands and copycats are generally resolved by assessing circumstances for trademark infringement, trade dress and or unfair competition.

In this instance, from looking at the court documents, some of the bottles or packaging of the smell-a-likes may well be similar enough to those of Victoria Secret’s to cause consumer confusion  and the courts may take the view that Preferred fragrance’s products are taking unfair advantage off the back of the reputation of Victoria's Secrets. The plaintiffs are currently seeking an injunction, the destruction of alleged competing product and damages.