NEWS

MetaBirkins NFT creator loses iconic trademark battle with Hermès

Release time:

2023-02-17 12:55

 

 

On February 8, 2023, a jury found Mason Rothschild, creator of MetaBirkins dishomogenization tokens (NFTs), liable for trademark infringement, trademark dilution and cybersquatting, and awarded Hermès $110,000 in trademark infringement/dilution damages and $23,000 in damages.ofPreemptive registration damages.This is the first to help clarifyNFTs legal status and how trademark law appliesOne of the litigation cases of the NFTs.

In December 2021, American artist Mason Rothschild released a release containingOne hundredNon-homogeneous tokens(NFTs), representing Hermès's iconic Birkin handbag, covered in faux fur in a variety of colors and designs. The series became known as MetaBirkins and soon sold out at a high price (NFT of the seriess Up$46,000 sold).

 

In January 2022, Hermès presentedUnited StatesFederal District Court for the Southern District of New York filed againstRothschild trademark infringement litigation, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, and damages. The French luxury brand has accused the artist of being a "digital speculator", hoping that by simply branding the artist under the Birkin trademarkBeforeAdd the prefix 「meta "to get rich quick. Hermès concluded that Rothschild "by manufacturing, distributing and selling unauthorized MetaBirkins NFTsshas violated, continues to violate and threatens further violationsBirkinTrademark」.

on the other hand,Citing the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees certain fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, Rothschild claimed that the amendment "gives me every right to create art based on my interpretation of the world around me. (...) Selling my MetaBirkins as NFT is akin to selling them as physical art prints 」. The creator of the NFT filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the above argument, but the court rejected his motion as well as the case against the dismissal.DecisionAbility to appeal.

 

The case inThe trial was held on January 30, 2023, and the judgment was delivered on February 8, 2023. The jury found Rothschild liable for trademark infringement, trademark dilution and cybersquatting, and awarded Hermès $11,000 in trademark infringement/dilution damages and $23,000 in cybersquatting damages. Interestingly, the jury also rejected the defendant's First Amendment argument thatInIn this case, "First Amendment protections are not prohibited 」Rothschild is liable for cybersquatting of domain names, trademark infringement and trademark dilution.

 

The judgment does not rule out futureUnited States ConstitutionFirst Amendment protection appliesNFT Artwork. Simply put, in weighing the free-speech arguments advanced by the defendants against the protection granted to Hermès by trademark law, the jury found the former less persuasive. In other words, using the Birkin trademark in conjunction with a Rothschild-created NFT is thought to risk misleading consumers into thinking that MetaBirkins is somehow connected to Hermès and does not appear to have sufficient "artistic" value to be protected by the First Amendment.