A couple from Norfolk, Victoria and Lawrence Osborne, were victorious in a ‘David versus Goliath’ trademark dispute with French luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (EPA:MC).
A tribunal ruled in favour of the Osbornes' home and gardening business, L V Bespoke, after a two-year battle with the company owned by Bernard Arnault, the former richest man in the world.
LVMH, which owns brands including Louis Vuitton and Fendi, objected to the couple's trademark of L V Bespoke, claiming it could cause potential "consumer confusion."
The couple decided to take on the €330 billion company and after two years of battling, the Intellectual Property Office said LVMH’s argument “failed on all grounds” and therefore ordered it to pay the couple £4,000.
Victoria Osborne hopes their case will set a precedent for small businesses facing trademark pressure from larger companies.
“It was a huge decision to do the fight. But I had in my gut that it was something worth fighting for. The evidence that they portrayed as an opposition just didn’t seem realistic at all,” she said.
The case parallels the 2017 case between BrewDog and Birmingham bar Lone Wolf, after the beer company had pressured the venue to change its name for being too similar.
It led to public backlash with boss James Watt apologising and blaming his “trigger-happy lawyers”.