Coachella sues Urban Outfitters for Trademark Infringement

Screenshot: Free People

The basis of most trademark cases is the existence of a likelihood of confusion as to origin between the infringing mark and the registered mark. This can also be linked with the Tort of Passing Off, which relates to cases where the infringing mark benefits from the established goodwill of the registered mark.

On March 14, Goldenvoice, owners of the Coachella brand- an annual music and arts festival in California,  initiated a suit for trademark infringement against 'Urban Outfitters'. Goldenvoice alleged that Urban, through its affiliate brand 'Free People', unlawfully used the former's established brand name and registered trademark 'Coachella' to sell clothing and other products.  According to LA Times' report, Urban allegedly 'uses "Coachella" as a search keyword to advertise its products online' and also placed the brand name in Free People's display URLs', which causes a Google search for ‘Coachella clothing’ to result in the 'Defendants’ infringing goods.

Coachella has asked the court for damages as well as an order requiring Urban to remove the infringing items put up for sale and to employ 'corrective advertising' methods to inform users that it is in no way affiliated with the Coachella Festival brand. Coachella has also previously permitted the H & M brand to use its name for the special collection H & M Loves Coachella

This is because the Coachella brand also has its line of branded goods and the misdirection in search results has a high likelihood of confusion. Forbes reports that prior to this suit, Coachella has made earlier demands of Urban to correct this confusion and the latter has also faced several copyright infringement claims from Harley-Davidson and Unicolors as well as other litigation.

The Coachella concert comes up later next month on the weekends of 14 and 23 April with tickets selling from $444 upwards and attendants in need of bohemian-style costumes. The timing of the suit is thus quite strategic as it will undoubtedly limit the sale of such clothing by Urban. It would be interesting to see how this dispute is resolved.