Gucci Loses Trademark Feud In Japan Over Similar ‘CUGGL’ Logo

Cross out the baseline of the Gucci wordmark and what do you read? CUGGL, perhaps?

Unfortunately, Gucci’s argument along these lines didn’t hold up in Japanese court. The Italian fashion house tried to block another clothing label for attempting to trademark a “confusing” logo which it said was essentially its trademark partially covered with a hot-pink brush stroke—to no avail.

On July 12, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) dismissed the opposition, concluding that there weren’t enough similarities between both logos for Gucci to make a solid case.

Here, let your eyes be the judge:

Today in IP law: someone registered a trademark for CUGGL as a clothing brand in Japan, and sells shirts with the logo partially obscured. GUCCI sued, JP trademark office states that CUGGL is not similar enough to GUCCI to warrant enforcement. pic.twitter.com/FKIyaQBtlE

— Halvar Flake (@halvarflake) August 22, 2022

Gucci wanted to stop someone named Nobuaki Kurokawa from trying to protect his ‘CUGGL’ trademark (pronounced kyu-gu-ru), which the applicant intended to use for apparel, footwear, and headwear—notably, products that the luxury house also sells.

As the Financial Times reveals, Kurokawa, an Osaka-based business owner whose face remains a mystery, is no stranger to litigation as he does a lot of T-shirts parodying household names. Thus far, he’s reimagined the Puma name with those of other animals, as well as taken on Adidas, Balenciaga, Lacoste, Nike, and Prada. His apparel also costs a fraction of luxury prices at about US$12 to US25 a pop.

Kurokawa applied for the trademark for CUGGL, along with a variation reading ‘GUANFI’, back in October 2020. In the heat of the pandemic and store closures, however, the luxury brand only spotted the registration much later, says the report.

Gucci accused its opponent of trademarking the CUGGL symbol with “malicious intent to free-ride [on the] goodwill and reputation” of its brand, as translated by Osaka-based trademark attorney Masaki Mikami.

The company asserted that the CUGGL mark was “identical with, or similar to, a trademark which is well known among consumers in Japan or abroad” and could damage its reputation. It added that the CUGGL trademark could deceive shoppers even further as it was being used in fashion contexts.

In an odd twist, the JPO refuted the comparisons between the Gucci and CUGGL marks and said it could not identify any resemblances “from visual, phonetic, and conceptual points of view.”

Since there was a “low degree of similarity” between the two, the Board deduced that consumers couldn’t possibly mix the two logos up.

[via The Fashion Law, Financial Times, Marks IP, images via various sources]