LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER, Plaintiff, vs. DOONEY & BOURKE, INC., Defendant., 525 F. Supp. 2d 558

Summary

Plaintiff claimed trademark rights in a repeating multicolor monogram pattern that it used on its handbags. Defendant was free to use its own particular combination of initials and designs imprinted in various colors, so long as its combination was not so similar to plaintiff's as to mislead consumers as to the true source of defendant's handbags. The special masters determined that a consumer confusion and trademark dilution survey, which was conducted by one of plaintiff's experts and took the form of a mall intercept survey in which respondents were shown one of three videos, was inadmissible under Fed. R. Evid. 403 and 702 because (1) the stimulus used by the survey was improper insofar as the videos of defendant's handbags did not allow respondents to see the initials that were used on the handbags and (2) the control stimulus was flawed in that it was dissimilar in shape and pattern to the bags at issue in the case. Another survey improperly defined its universe because ...