A New York federal court has proposed a sweeping injunction following a jury trial win for the luxury goods brand in February and a subsequent bench trial over equitable remedies. In an email to the parties last week, Judge Louis Stanton set out proposals for injunctive relief for Chanel by way of an order that – if finalized – will prevent What Goes Around Comes Around (“WGACA”) from, among other things, “using any of the CHANEL trademarks or any marks confusingly similar thereto to advertise or promote WGACA’s general business” and will permanently block the reseller from “making any advertising claims, representations, or statements [about] the genuineness of any CHANEL-branded items” unless it has records to support such authentication claims.
At a high level, the far-reaching proposed injunction, as first reported by TFL, seeks to ensure that consumers are not confused about the lack of connection between Chanel and WGACA or the nature of any Chanel-branded products that are being offered up by WGACA. In furtherance of this aim, the court proposed an array of restrictions and/or requirements that WGACA must abide by within 90 days of the injunction being issued …
> Use of Chanel branding: Primarily, the court stated that WGACA must refrain from using the CHANEL word mark or any marks confusingly similar thereto in Chanel’s “stylized font,” and using any of the CHANEL marks … in connection with its advertisement, promotion, distribution, or sale of CHANEL-branded items, “other than to identify a particular item currently for sale as made and sold by Chanel, or to the extent the specific item currently for sale itself bears CHANEL marks.”
Beyond that, WGACA also must not: (1) use photos or copies of Chanel runway and marketing campaigns and/or Chanel print ads bearing the CHANEL Marks or any marks confusingly similar thereto; (2) use any hashtags consisting of or including the word “Chanel”; (3) use the word “Chanel” in discount codes; and/or (4) use the name, image, or likeness of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel.
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