The Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling on Thursday 22 December in which it found that the use of a trade mark - in this case the Louboutin shoe brand - by the online retailer Amazon on its website may give the impression that it is marketing the goods sold in its own name and on its own behalf.
The French designer of high-heeled pumps Christian Louboutin, whose fame was made in particular by his red-sole shoes, has brought two actions against Amazon, one in Luxembourg (C-148/21) and one in Belgium (C-184/21). It claims that Amazon is illegally using a sign identical to the mark it owns for goods identical to those for which the mark in question is registered.
In its judgment, the Court of Justice of the EU points out that the Amazon platform incorporates, in addition to a marketplace, offers for sale made by itself and that this may result in users of the online marketplace having the impression that the advertisements for the products in question come not from third-party sellers but from the marketplace operator.
The CJEU thus considers that it is for the referring courts to assess whether this is the case. However, the Court also states that the referring courts should bear in mind that Amazon uses a “uniform way of presenting offers for sale published on its website, displaying its own advertisements and those of third-party sellers at the same time and displaying its own logo as a reputable retailer on all those advertisements”.
Furthermore, the CJEU adds, Amazon also offers additional services to these third-party sellers in connection with the marketing of their products, consisting in particular of the storage and shipping of their products.
“Those circumstances may make it difficult to draw a clear distinction and give the normally informed and reasonably attentive user the impression that it is Amazon which is marketing, in its own name and on its own account”, the CJEU concluded.
See the judgment (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/4rs (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)