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Coach wants to bench T-shirts from Gap’s Old Navy brand.
The luxury handbag maker filed a lawsuit against the Dapper Dan partner Wednesday, alleging that Gap had infringed on its trademarks by selling T-shirts emblazoned with the word, “Coach.”
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The Tapestry-owned brand accuses Gap, which it considers a competitor according to court documents, of making an “effort to exploit [Coach’s] goodwill and reputation of the Coach trademarks.”
The two trademarks Coach refers to throughout the complaint are what it calls the Coach mark, bearing the company’s name without the logo, and what it calls “Coach (stylized form),” which features the company’s name in layered, stylish block lettering.
Coach states that it “[has] not…given [Gap] any form of permission to use any of the Coach trademarks in connection with the designing, manufacturing, advertising, promoting, distributing, selling and/or offering for sale of the accused products.”
The shirts in question, then, Coach asserts, “are intended to cause, have caused, and are likely to continue to cause confusion, mistake and deception among consumers, the public and the trade as to whether defendants’ accused products originate from, or are affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Coach.”
Coach has accused Gap of trademark infringement and counterfeiting, as well as false designation of origin and false advertising, under the Lanham Act, the U.S.’s primary trademark statute. It has also accused Gap of unfair competition under California’s Unfair Business Practices Act and California common law.
The Ellen McArthur Foundation partner alleges that Gap’s conduct “was extreme, outrageous, fraudulent and was inflicted on plaintiffs in reckless disregard of plaintiffs’ rights in the Coach trademarks.”
Earlier on in the complaint, Coach notes that its annual sales volume on products bearing its trademarks amounts to more than $4 billion, making those logos “some of its most valuable assets.”
The company seeks injunctive relief—meaning the court would restrain Gap from creating or selling the merchandise in question—and monetary relief. In the complaint, counsel for Coach asks that the court “[award] plaintiffs all of defendants’ profits and all damages sustained by plaintiffs as a result of defendants’ wrongful acts.”
The lawsuit is not Coach’s first foray into trademark infringement complaints. In January, the Coachtopia maker filed a lawsuit against Meitaotao Trading, alleging trademark infringement after Customs and Border Protections (CBP) seized several dozen goods that it alleged were “imitations of one or more of the Coach trademarks.”