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WWD reported that Trovata’s lawsuit alleging that Forever 21 copied its designs is headed to trial next month after two years of legal wrangling. It’s not the first time Forever 21 has legal issues with copying other designers, Diane von Furstenberg has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against them awhile back. The trial is scheduled to begin May 7 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif. This just adds to their long list of legal issues revolving around “copying” other designers, I wonder what the outcome would be. Just fyi, I am not hating Forever 21- it is what it is. How do you feel about it?
More info from the WWD story after the jump…
“Trovata is claiming that certain button patterns and stripes on a sweater would cause consumers to associate the garments with its brand, but there is no evidence to suggest that consumers would be confused,” said Bruce Brunda, an attorney for Forever 21. “Forever 21’s products are only sold in Forever 21 stores and are labeled with Forever 21’s brand. The design features on the Trovata designs are rather generic and are not protected by copyrights.” The trial is scheduled to begin May 7 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif. “It’s a difficult case, and they are putting up a substantial fight, but we believe that Forever 21 willfully and intentionally copied the designs of our client, in violation of a number of laws,” said Frank Colucci, a lawyer for Newport Beach, Calif.-based Trovata. A separate lawsuit Anthropologie filed against Forever 21 does include allegations of copyright violations, as the Urban Outfitters-owned chain said Forever 21 copied a number of its patterns. In a March 13 order in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Dolinger in Manhattan reprimanded Forever 21 for deceptive conduct during the discovery phase. He added, “We note the extraordinary litigating history of this company, which raises the most serious questions as to whether it is a business that is predicated in large measure on the systematic infringement of competitors’ intellectual property.” Gregory Gulia, an attorney for Anthropologie, said he believes Forever 21 is willing to risk the lawsuits because duplicating designer looks is a lucrative business strategy. Forever 21 has been sued more than 50 times for copyright infringement in the last three years. The retailer has settled such cases out of court. Robert Powley, an attorney for Forever 21 in the Anthropologie case, said copying of designs is rampant in the fashion industry, with vintage garments used by many designers as reference points in their work. “It can be very hard for a company the size of Forever 21, which is producing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of designs every year, to know if every design is original or based on designs that are in the public domain,” he said. “Even if you take every garment in question in all these lawsuits, it would account for much less than 1 percent of Forever 21’s products. They take this issue very seriously and are working hard to prevent this from happening.”  13 Responses to “Travota vs. Forever 21”COMMENTS PAGE: |
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I think Forever 21 can be LESS obvious about copying designers. They can “borrow” inspirations from designer brands like H&M, Zara, Mango, Topshop have been doing for ages and they didn’t have so much conflict as Forever 21. Changing the design or colors a bit won’t make people want the clothes less.
Wow, I can’t believe how they just ripped off their designs.
btw, you misspelled the “Trovata” in the title of your post
WOW! I can barely tell the difference! Come on Forever 21…..
In this case, they’ve taken NUMEROUS pieces and coppied them, there is clearly not just a coincidence and F21 needs to be punished!
Honestly if designer made thier clothing affordable to the masses, Forever21 would not be as profitable or as in demand as they are. We are all guilty of shopping there. In addition all designers copy previous designers, nothing is truly original.
Its obvious that alot of stores “borrow” ideas for their lines, but when its uber-obvious like this and DVF (I remember that one vividly), its ridiculous and completely understandable why design houses file lawsuits.
i agree with posted “Too bad”, i have seen other stuff forever21 has copied… even the shoes. i’ve seen other places.
Well if the designers made their clothes more affordable then forever21 wouldnt have to copy them. I dont think its matters they were probably over priced anyways
well i’m not shocked. forever 21 is known to do knock offs of designers. besides DVF, i think LAMB or Harajuku lovers made a complaint as well in the past.
they’ve copied Triple Five Soul too.. they settled in the end tho. i heard the designers at f21 are called “buyers” so they don’t get in trouble, hah.
I work in the clothing industry and Forever 21 are a bunch of leeches. They use to send a bunch of young fake Korean buyer girls to invade all the apparel tradeshows, steal everyone’s catalogs and reproduce the same designs exactly down to the button. These days they pay leeches to invade runway shows, tradeshows steal catalogs/take photos and reproduce the designs few weeks later before the original designers. That Korean lady who owns Forever 21 is sitting at the top of her throne laughing at all of you people who buy from Forever 21 knowing they are clone clothes and fakes.
FOREVER FAKERS 21
Hey whoever sides with Forever 21, let them make human clones of you too since it’s cheating those clones can wear your Forever 21 clone clothes and f*ck your husband/boyfriend/girlfriend or use your Forever 21 dildo accessory. haha.
What I don’t understand is that… Why is Forever21 always gets sued instead of other retail business? I mean other places copies high fashion brands. Take Steve Madden for example, they’re doing very well, and most of their shoes looks almost the same as like Christian Louboutin’s. And being sold under 100 dollars. And apparently, I have never heard of Steve Madden getting sued or going through copyright legal issues.
Now let’s sue payless and walmart and every other retailer…ridiculous people, Europe is goin to manifest aswell since us fashion is deeply influenced by them….Forever 21 is not the only smart company to make their products affordable.