Tangle, the company behind a collection of little twistable toys, will not amend its complaint in the case it has been waging against Aritzia over the retailer’s allegedly infringing window displays. On the heels of a federal judge in Northern California granting Aritzia’s motion to dismiss Tangle’s copyright and trade dress infringement claims – albeit with leave for Tangle to amend, the toy-maker lodged a notice of intent not to amend its complaint last week, prompting Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to dismiss Tangle’s complaint in its entirety with prejudice.
In a motion to dismiss order in October, Judge White sided with Aritzia, finding that Tangle had fallen short on its copyright infringement claim, as it had not adequately alleged that it maintains valid copyrights or that Aritzia copied protected aspects of its works, and its trade dress claim, as well, on the basis that it had not plausibly alleged distinctive trade dress infringement.
On the copyright front, the court took issue with Tangle’s attempt to broadly claim protection over the “style” of its toy designs, which consist of tubular configurations of 17 or 18 interlocking segments. In addition to taking issue with Tangle’s “sweeping argument that any configuration of 17 or 18 interlocking segments of the same size [that is] manipulable along the same axes would infringe [its] copyrights,” Judge White determined that the protections at play for Tangle are “thin” and that “the range of expression is narrow because there are only so many ways to create tubular sculptures made of interlocking 90-degree segments.” Against that background, the court determined that there are “more than de minimus differences between the two [companies’] sculptures,” from the color to the scale, and thus, Tangle fell short on its copyright claim.
In terms of the toy company’s trade dress claim, the court similarly sided with Aritzia, finding that Tangle had “not plausibly alleged distinctive trade dress infringement.” Primarily, Judge White held that Tangle did not meet the “notice pleading” standard required by Rule 8 for its trade dress claims, as its second amended complaint did not “define [the] alleged trade dress with sufficient precision to give the defendants adequate notice of the basis of [the] trade dress claim.” Echoing one of Aritzia’s arguments, Judge White stated that he “cannot determine from the face of the [complaint] whether Tangle seeks trade dress protection over ‘chrome pink’; segmented tubular sculptures; chrome pink segmented tubular sculptures; or some other combination of elements.”
Moreover, Tangle’s complaint lacked “well-pleaded allegations that the elements of its trade dress are non-functional, or that the trade dress is inherently distinctive or has acquired secondary meaning,” according to the court.
The case is Tangle, Inc. v. Aritzia, Inc., 3:23-cv-01196 (N.D. Cal.)
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