Sydney designer Katie Perry has won her High Court appeal against pop star Katy Perry in a 16-year trademark dispute.
Australia’s High Court judges found that Katie Perry’s label did not breach trademark laws and was not likely to cause confusion with her clothing brand.
When the fashion designer Katie Taylor, born Katie Perry, applied to register that name as a business in 2007, she said she had not heard of the singer at the time, the court said.
The designer applied to register the “Katie Perry” trademark for the sale of clothes in September 2008 – a few months after the release of Perry’s debut single, ‘I Kissed a Girl’.
The legal battle began in May 2009, when the singer filed a notice of opposition to the registration of the trademark and sent cease and desist letters to the Australian designer.
Katie Perry, who changed her surname to Taylor in 2015, successfully sued Perry two years ago for selling merchandise during a 2014 Australian tour, but the ruling was overturned in 2024 with the designer’s trademark cancelled.
At the time, Taylor described the case as a “David and Goliath” battle, saying she was devastated by the decision.
She then took her case to Australia’s highest court.
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On Wednesday, three of five high court justices sided with Taylor. They rejected the argument by Perry’s lawyers that the singer had already acquired a significant reputation in Australia by the time Taylor applied for the “Katie Perry” trademark in 2008, saying this did not extend to clothing.
The court ruled that Perry’s label, Kitty Purry, and her international merchandise distributor, Bravado, had been “assiduous infringers” of Taylor’s trademark.
“This has been an incredibly long and difficult journey,” Taylor said in a statement shortly after the decision. “But today confirms what I always believed – that trademarks should protect businesses of all sizes.”
“This case has never just been about a name,” Taylor said. “It has been about protecting small business in Australia, for standing up for what is right and showing that we all matter.”
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In recent years, Katy Perry has made headlines for all the wrong reasons – from her failed music comeback to being under investigation in Spain, mocked for her Blue Origin spaceflight stunt, and her new relationship with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.