Katy Perry loses trademark case against Katie Perry after 16-year legal battle
The issue between Katy and Katie Perry has been going on for years
Singer Katy Perry may have to finally call it a day after the latest ruling in her ongoing legal battle with Australian designer Katie Perry.
The legal feud between pop singer Katy Perry and Australian fashion designer Katie Perry goes back quite a while at this point...
Sydney-based Katie Perry, who now goes by Katie Taylor, registered her business name, Katie Perry way back in 2007 and applied for a trademark.
From 2008 onwards she sold clothes at local markets, had a website and multiple social media accounts with the Katie Perry brand.
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However, as singer Katy Perry grew in popularity, she and her lawyers asked Taylor to stop using her brand and signaled they were looking to oppose a trademarket application, but later dropped the action.
Taylor has said: “I had never heard of the singer when I started my label. I was simply building a fashion business under the name I was born with.”
In 2019, Taylor sued the pop star for trademark infringement for the singer's sale of jackets, hoodies, T-shirts and sweatpants during a 2014 tour, claiming a breach of trademark laws.
In 2023 she won but in 2024 it was overturned following an appeal from the singer.
In 2026, on March 11, Australia’s high court found that Katie Perry had not hurt the US singer's reputation or caused confusion with her clothing brand.
This new decision by judges found that Perry's reputation was so well-established in Australia that anyone seeing Taylor's clothing brand would not confuse the two names
The justices rejected the argument by Perry’s lawyers that the singer had already acquired a significant reputation in Australia when Taylor applied for her trademark in 2008, adding that this didn’t extend to clothing.
Following the decision the designer Katie Perry said: “This has been an incredibly long and difficult journey.
“But today confirms what I always believed - that trademarks should protect businesses of all sizes.
"This case has never just been about a name.
"It has been about protecting small business in Australia, for standing up for what is right and showing that we all matter."
According to a Guardian report, a representative for the pop singer said in a statement that Katy Perry ‘never sought to close down Ms. Taylor's business or stop her selling clothes under the KATIE PERRY label’.
They added: “Today, by a 3:2 decision, the high court determined that Ms. Taylor’s trademark can remain on the register. The court [also] sent the case back to the Full Federal Court to determine issues raised by Katy Perry, including Ms. Taylor’s 10-year delay in bringing her case against Katy Perry.”
Topics: News, Celebrity, Australia, Music, Katy Perry
Gerrard Kaonga