Dark horse win for Aussie fashion label Katie Perry against Katy Perry

Popstar Katy Perry has just lost a court case in the Federal Court of Australia against a Sydney-based fashion designer. The court found that one of Perry’s companies had infringed on the trademark of Katie Jane Taylor, who has been selling clothing under the Katie Perry label since 2007.

The pair have been engaging in legal back-and-forths since 2009 over Taylor’s use of the name Katie Perry — her legal birth name — in her clothing lines.

Despite launching the Katie Perry brand in 2007, two years before Katy Perry broke into popular culture — Taylor received a cease and desist notice in 2009 due to the similarity in name, saying its use was “misleading or deceptive”.

The popstar, whose legal name is Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, applied to trademark “Katy Perry” in the same month.

“I had no knowledge of the singer at the time,” wrote Taylor in a blog post from 2020.

Taylor’s trademark of the Katie Perry brand name hit Intellectual Property Australia’s register in July 2009.

But it was the singer’s 2014 Australian Prismatic World Tour that kicked off a near-decade-long legal issue with the two Perrys.

During the tour, Katy Perry sold clothing through the singer’s Kitty Purry and Killer Queen brands in Australian pop-up stores and via the Bravado website. She also opposed the Australian registration of the Katie Perry brand but later withdrew this opposition.

In 2019 Taylor filed a trademark infringement claim over the tour merchandise, with Katy Perry’s legal team filing a cross-claim in the same year, arguing the singer had a reputation in Australia before the designer staked a legal claim.

But this was ultimately unsuccessful, with the Federal court finding in favour of Taylor on April 21. It additionally found that the popstar infringed on the Katie Perry trademark in Facebook and Twitter posts promoting the products during the tour.
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Justice Markovic also stated that Katy Perry’s reputation during the Prismatic World Tour was in relation to entertainment and music, and not clothing. The judge also found no evidence of confusion between the two trademarks despite both women trading for over a decade.

However, the judge did reject claims from Taylor that her trademark was infringed upon due to clothing sold in Target and Myer as well as online through eBay and Amazon.

Damages will be decided at a later date.