According to some reports, French luxury brand Hermes won an NFT trademark infringement lawsuit against an artist who depicted its famous Birkin bags in a non-fungible token collection. The artist argued that NFTs should be covered under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, but the jury disagreed.
Hermes wins the lawsuit.
French luxury design house Hermes has won a lawsuit against Mason Rothschild, the artist behind the “Metabirkins” non-fungible token collection. This collection featured digital depictions of Hermes’s popular Birkin bags without their permission.
Rothschild created the Metabirkins non-fungible token collection two years ago, which he described then as a collection of 100 unique NFTs made with faux fur in various contemporary colours and graphic executions. The collection has fetched more than 200 ETH sales so far, equivalent to 331,648 USD at the time of writing, which is quite a good amount per the market condition. However, Hermes, the french luxury design house, complained and sued the artist early last year for trademark infringement.
Rothschild argued that non-fungible tokens should be covered under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. The artist’s defence team compared his work to that of Andy Warhol, who depicted Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles in his artwork. Rothschild argued in court that these images and the NFTs that authenticate them are not handbags. They carry nothing but meaning.
Rothschild was accused of trademark infringement and trademark.
As you know, French luxury brand Hermes won an NFT trademark infringement lawsuit against an artist who depicted its famous Birkin bags in a non-fungible token collection. However, when the lawsuit was in court, Hermes’ lawyers accused Rothschild of stealing the goodwill in Hermes’ famous intellectual property to create and sell his line of products. They argued that customers would likely confuse Metabirkins NFT with genuine Hermes products.
They further said the Metabirkins URL is too similar to the one used by the luxury brands. Oren Warshavsky, a lawyer representing Hermes, said in a court that the reason for these sales was the Birkin name.
After deliberating for two days, a New York jury delivered a verdict on Wednesday stating that they found the defendant liable for trademark infringement and dilution. They also found that the First Amendment protection does not bar liability. The jury awarded Hermes with 133,000 dollars in damages, 111,000 USD for trademark infringement and 23,000 USD for cybersquatting.
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