In a case that may have far-reaching implications for the perfume industry, L'Oreal has won a lawsuit against a company that copied the "olfactory architecture" of its fragrances:
A scent is a work of art just like a painting or a symphony, a French court has ruled in a case seen as a major victory in the battle against copycat fragrances.
After decades of failed attempts to copyright a particular perfume, cosmetics giant L'Oreal finally persuaded the court that its perfumes were entitled to the French droits d'auteur (authorial rights) that protect their creators from imitation for 70 years.
Read the rest of the article at the news.telegraph.
My goodness! It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. On the one hand, it's nice that the smell of a perfume has been acknowledged as being a work of art. On the other hand, so many fragrances are so similar that even things that aren't outright dupes may look like they share the same structure. Hmm, hmm. I'm just thinking off the top of my head. In my fantasy world, this forces fragrance companies to go to greater lengths to build more distinctive fragrances, rather than just copying successes already on the market. But in the darkside fantasy, the whole industry collapses in an avalanche of lawsuits. OK, enough fantasizing. This is really interesting. Thanks for the news, R!
Well, then Theirry Mugler should be most justified in filing a case against oh so many creators of Angel-wannabe scents.
T, I don't know that it will be *that* far-reaching. It looks like the decision was based on the fact that gas chromatology showed that the scents were virtually identical. So I'm guessing that you could still capitalize on the success of another scent buy creating something similar, you just can't dupe something to that level.
M, see my comment above. I don't think we're safe from the many Angel wanna-bes just yet
But fear of lawsuits can be just as effective as actual lawsuits. We'll see! Or maybe it just all results in deliberately crappy dupes.
I recently read that Thierry Mugler Parfums won a similar case for Angel a few years ago. Then it was a first.
LOL at “deliberately crappy dupes”…we get enough of those already, right?
C, yes, will have to look that up. Seems to me that they sued Molinard maybe? But not sure that is the one they won.
thank you for this — I'm taking the article into my Intellectual Property law class for show and tell! xoxo
Yay for show & tell! Take 'em some dupes to illustrate your point
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