YOON&YANG

Yoon & Yang LLC won a trademark case against Kumkang Shoe Co., Ltd. (Kumkang Shoe), a Korean shoe brand, representing Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A. (Salvatore Ferragamo).

On August 11, 2010, the Seoul Central District Court ordered Kumkang Shoe to stop using the seven shoe decorations whose trademark rights are owned by Salvatore Ferragamo and to destroy products adorned with such decorations and ruled that Kumkang Shoe should pay damages of KRW 200 million and publish its infringements on the trademark rights on a daily.

Salvatore Ferragamo filed a lawsuit in July last year, arguing that Kumkang Shoe copied some of its decorations for men’s shoes among its products, and the decorations at issue are the horseshoe-shape metal decorations linked with a leather or metal lace.

This case involved putting the shoe decorations that copied the registered trademarks onto shoe products and, this case is reconfirmed that shoe decorations have the function of trademarks.

The intellectual property rights team of Yoon & Yang has previously demonstrated its expertise in disputes on luxury fashion products’ trademarks by winning the 2007 trademark case between Gianni Versace and Alfredo Versace as counsel for Gianni Versace.