Singer Katy Perry won a long-running legal fight with an Australian fashion designer after an appeal court ordered the cancellation of the Sydney businesswoman’s “Katie Perry” trademark. Local loungewear designer Katie Jane Taylor, who sells clothing under the name Katie Perry – rather than Katy Perry – described the decision as “heartbreaking”. Katy Perry, left, and Australian fashion designer Katie Jane Taylor, who sells clothing under the brand name Katie Perry.
Credit: Eddie Jim, Janie Barrett Taylor had sued the American singer-songwriter for trademark infringement over the performer’s own “Katy Perry” merchandise and won a partial victory last year. The singer and related companies filed an appeal. In a decision in Sydney on Friday , the Full Court of the Federal Court said the designer’s claim could not succeed because her trademark “was not validly registered” from September 2008, and the register “should be rectified by cancelling its registration”.
The registration was not valid because the trademark was likely to deceive or cause confusion at a time when Perry was already a “nationally and internationally famous pop star” who had “released several singles and an album which had achieved significant exposure in Australian media”. The court said the “difference in spelling of ‘Katy’ v ‘Katie’ does not take the aurally identical word marks beyond deceptive similarity”. “Whilst some die-hard fans of [the I Kissed A Gi.