Exclusive. Katie Perry, Australian fashion designer, loses her trademark appeal to Katy Perry
According to the BBC, The Guardian, and USA Today, Katy Perry has successfully challenged a trademark ruling pertaining to her name.
Australian designer Katie Taylor, who sells apparel under her given name, Katie Perry, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the singer in October 2019.
The pop star’s 2014 Australian tour apparel violated a trademark the designer had owned since 2008, according to a court ruling Taylor obtained in April 2023.
Three appeals judges unanimously reversed last year’s court finding in favor of Taylor on Friday, November 22. The judges found that the singer had used her name as a trademark five years prior to Taylor’s 2008 company launch.
According to her website, Taylor has been utilizing the «Katie Perry» brand name, which she registered as a trademark in Australia on September 29, 2008. Notably, Perry’s second studio album, One of the Boys, included her first breakthrough single, «I Kissed a Girl,» which was released in April 2008.
The vocalist of «Dark Horse,» according to USA Today, had then achieved a «international reputation in her name in music and entertainment if not more broadly,» according to the judges’ decision.
Perry had the right to use her own name in Australia as a result.
Perry’s lawyers also suggested they reach a «coexistence agreement» after sending Taylor a «cease and desist» letter in 2009. However, Taylor turned down the deal, and the justices decided that Taylor «has brought this result on herself» as a result of that 2009 ruling, according to USA Today. «I regret to inform you that the days of peaceful coexistence are long gone.»
The justices decided on Nov. 22 that Perry had used her name as a trademark in good faith during the 2014 Prism tour, notwithstanding Judge Markovic’s 2023 ruling that Perry had violated the trademark with items in 2014.
In addition to Perry’s successful appeal, Taylor’s trademark registration was revoked by the judges on November 22.
They discovered that several of Taylor’s brand choices would have raised the possibility of «consumers potentially being deceived or confused,» and that she only registered for her trademark after learning about Perry’s notoriety.
