Zara is suing the “responsible” brand Thilikó for “passing off” Zara products and photos as its own.
Zara and its parent company Inditex have accused the Los Angeles-based “socially responsible” fashion brand of engaging in a “serial” scheme of copyright infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices to mislead consumers about the source and the nature of their clothing and accessories. According to the complaint they filed in federal court in New York on Jan. 4, Zara and Inditex allege that Thilikó, LLC and its owner Queenie Williams (collectively, the “defendants”) built a business by passing off Zara’s fast fashion products as their own. including by purchasing Zara clothing, removing the Zara labels and replacing them with labels bearing the Thilikó name, and passing off these items as their own – complete with “exorbitantly high markups”.
In a recently filed complaint, Zara and Inditex allege that in order to “benefit from Zara’s intellectual property,” Thilikó sold “misbranded and misbranded [Zara] products” — from women’s suit pants to slip dresses — to “an unsuspecting to the public” as “original Thilikó products”. Specifically, Zara and Inditex allege that “Thilikó’s advertising, marketing, and product labels suggest that [Zara’s] misbranded products are designed, created, and/or manufactured by Thilikó.” In addition to misleading consumers about the original source of the clothing in question, the two-year-old brand, which sells clothing and accessories through its own e-commerce site and through other retailers such as Wolf & Badger, also allegedly aims to “deceive the public,” offering these misbranded products “at exorbitant prices that are well in excess of what consumers would pay for them at Zara.”
Thilikó’s ‘massive scam’ doesn’t stop there: Zara and Inditex allege that in addition to marketing misbranded Zara products as designed and manufactured by Thilikó, the defendants “systematically” used copyrighted photos appearing on Zara’s website , and “unlawfully” used them to advertise and sell “unlawfully branded products”. Inditex claims that while it is the legal owner of the images that appear on Zara’s website, including but not limited to the 32 images that it and Zara have identified to date as infringing by the defendants, Thilikó routinely “distorts Inditex’s photographs, copyrighted as [their own] “property”.
In addition to the photo copyright infringement, Zara – which has somewhat ironically established itself as one of the biggest players in retail by quickly turning other brands’ high-end designs into mass-market goods (a fact that probably won’t go unnoticed by consumers/commentators on social media networks) – and Inditex also claim that Thilikó violated Zara’s e-commerce site terms, which prohibit the use, reproduction, modification, etc. of any material from the site without their permission.
In addition, Thilikó engages in additional false advertising by positioning itself “as an independent fashion brand, the creator and artisan of the clothing models in its collections,” according to Zara and Inditex. In particular, the company “attracts consumers by emphasizing its social responsibility and commitment to thoughtful design and sustainable clothing production.” (The greenwashing company “attracts consumers by emphasizing its social responsibility and commitment to ethically designed and environmentally friendly clothing,” the indictment says, with the aggravating factor of further misleading consumers.)
Although Thilikó positions itself as a “socially ‘responsible’ fashion brand” that focuses on “craftsmanship, details and fabrics,” a closer look reveals that “nothing could be further from the truth,” the plaintiffs allege, alleging that Thilikó’s “false and misleading statements relate to matters of primary and material importance to consumers: the source, manufacturer and designer of the product and the seller’s social responsibility.”
In light of the foregoing, Zara and Inditex have asserted claims for copyright infringement, false advertising, unfair competition, unfair and deceptive trade practices under New York State law, and trademark infringement under the New York State Arts and Cultural Affairs Act, the latter which infers the defendants’ alleged practice of “knowingly selling, offering to sell, and possessing with intent to dispose of goods bearing a label that falsely indicates the persons who manufacture and/or manufacture the goods.” Zara and its owner also allege that the defendants’ conduct “continues and undoubtedly includes additional acts of copyright infringement, unfair competition, impersonation, false advertising, and unfair and deceptive trade practices that have not been discovered to date.” day”.
As a result of such infringements, Zara and Inditex claim that they have “suffered substantial monetary damages as well as irreparable and undetermined harm to Zara’s honor and business reputation,” and are therefore seeking monetary damages and an injunction to prevent Thilikó from infringing the plaintiffs’ photographs, ” offer, advertise or promote any product or service by making false or misleading statements or representations of fact in any media about ZARA products” etc.
And one last remark. Although Zara and Inditex claim that Thilikó buys its goods from them and removes Zara’s branding, it is also possible that the defendants may buy these goods from third-party manufacturers who copy Zara’s goods and/or subtly source them from a chain of factories -suppliers of Zara. The final point will be the conducted examination.
What we advise, as your lawyers: to be responsible in advance for the formation of the evidence base during the protection of one’s own copyrights. Registration of the brand name and logo using TM, industrial designs will help protect ready-made clothing models and individual accessories, and drawings and individual parts of the original design can be submitted for copyright registration. We do not forget about signing non-disclosure and non-competition agreements with all employees of your company, as well as the transfer of property copyrights from designers, designers, photographers and models. We also advise you to pay attention to your own social networks and advertising companies – because there is also a person who creates content that you will use in the future. From the tags on the clothes to the final model on the shelves in the store – all this is a difficult path that must be followed in order to understand the price of both the product and your reputation. And the perpetrators, together with their lawyers, should be punished through the courts and warnings of a pre-trial.
copyright / intellectual property / Thilikó / trademark / Zara
