{"id":1700,"date":"2017-03-02T23:34:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T04:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:56:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:56:22","slug":"whats-in-a-hangtag-that-which-we-call-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2017\/03\/whats-in-a-hangtag-that-which-we-call-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a hangtag? that which we call Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"coach\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the The Fashion Law<\/a>, Coach filed an action in a Manhattan federal\u00a0court in\u00a0February 2017 against various defendants for creating and distributing products that allegedly infringe upon its intellectual property. Interestingly, and rather unusually, Coach is not only seeking trademark protection, but also protection of trade dress of its hangtag design. Trade dress<\/a> refers to the total image of a product, including its design and shape, which serves as an indicator of the product\u2019s source and of the brand even when the brand\u2019s name is not present. In order for trade dress to be protectable, it must be non-functional and distinctive. Coach owns various federal trade dress rights related to its hangtag design, some with, and without,\u00a0the word \u201cCOACH\u201d on the hangtag. The hangtag is clearly non-functional as it does not affect the quality and usage of the handbag and therefore serves no functional purpose, but the design of a rectangular hangtag attached to the bag by a small metal chain seems to be quite common and not inherently\u00a0distinctive.<\/p>\n

However, even if the design is not inherently distinctive, Coach can claim trade dress protection by proving that its hangtag design has acquired secondary meaning among its consumers and the public, and it attempts to do exactly that. In its complaint,\u00a0Coach argues<\/a> that through its widespread advertising and distribution of merchandise that bears the Coach hangtag since 1973, its\u00a0hangtag has acquired secondary meaning because it \u201chas become instantly recognizable as exclusively denoting Coach and its high quality merchandise.\u201d The fashion company\u00a0is requesting both damages and injunctive relief prohibiting the defendants from using the hangtag design.<\/p>\n

Prudence Ng is a Sports and Entertainment Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2019).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the The Fashion Law, Coach filed an action in a Manhattan federal\u00a0court in\u00a0February 2017 against various defendants for creating and distributing products that allegedly infringe upon its intellectual property. Interestingly, and rather unusually, Coach is not only seeking trademark protection, but also protection of trade dress of its hangtag design. Trade dress refers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[148,99,93,44],"ppma_author":[382],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlight","tag-fashion","tag-highlight","tag-intellectual-property","tag-trademark"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZjrR-rq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":382,"user_id":39,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jsel","display_name":"JSEL","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4abb87a025d5a7951a4b4249facf4d22ea8002b216770229a96689038d0f83bc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}