Once again G-Star started proceedings based on its copyrights on the Elwood jeans. This time against H&M. G-Star was proven right by the Court of Dordrecht: The famous Swedish store chain has to remove two jeans models from its collection. These jeans models are too similar to the G-Star Elwood from the 2009 collection. According to the Court, H&M copied four of the five main features of the Elwood jeans. This creates a similar overall impression and thus is a copyright infringement. The differences that H&M brought forward: such as the colour/location of the pin points, the extra loops and a different wash do not change that. These differences are of minor importance, according to the Court. G-Star requested the prohibition of copyright infringement in the Netherlands for the Swedish and the Dutch H&M. H&M tried to bring forward that the Court of Dordrecht has no international jurisdiction and furthermore, that it was the wrong court in the Netherlands. The Court was not impressed: these claims against the two parties are sufficiently intertwined to justify a joint treatment. Because there is an H&M store in Dordrecht, it is very likely that the infringing jeans were sold in Dordrecht (or at least were exchanged there).That allows the Court of Dordrecht to decide on this matter as well. The Elwood rules again….
Kim Braber, copyright lawyer
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Once again G-Star started proceedings based on its copyrights on the Elwood jeans. This time against H&M. G-Star was proven right by the Court of Dordrecht: The famous Swedish store chain has to remove two jeans models from its collection. These jeans models are too similar to the G-Star Elwood from the 2009 collection. According to the Court, H&M copied four of the five main features of the Elwood jeans. This creates a similar overall impression and thus is a copyright infringement. The differences that H&M brought forward: such as the colour/location of the pin points, the extra loops and a different wash do not change that. These differences are of minor importance, according to the Court. G-Star requested the prohibition of copyright infringement in the Netherlands for the Swedish and the Dutch H&M. H&M tried to bring forward that the Court of Dordrecht has no international jurisdiction and furthermore, that it was the wrong court in the Netherlands. The Court was not impressed: these claims against the two parties are sufficiently intertwined to justify a joint treatment. Because there is an H&M store in Dordrecht, it is very likely that the infringing jeans were sold in Dordrecht (or at least were exchanged there).That allows the Court of Dordrecht to decide on this matter as well. The Elwood rules again….
Kim Braber, copyright lawyer