Vetements Takes Its Trademark Fight to U.S. Supreme Court

Europe|Lost in Translation: Upscale Clothing Company Takes Name Fight to Supreme Court

The Swiss luxury brand Vetements is famously subversive, making pricey versions of cheap and common objects, like T-shirts and shopping bags, prized by the likes of Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Celine Dion and Madonna.

But not everyone gets it.

“Vêtements” means simply “clothing” in French, and the name reflects the brand’s cheeky high-low approach. This is the company, after all, that last year sent Gigi Hadid down the runway in a minidress made of packing tape.

Adopting such an unadorned name, however, has left Vetements vulnerable in the United States, where the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused to register the company’s trademarks, saying the translated term “clothing” is too generic to protect.

Now, Vetements has asked the Supreme Court to step in. In a petition to the court last month, the company’s lawyers said that the trademark authorities and courts across the country were treating words in foreign languages differently from those in English, and that they were inconsistent in how they handled translations.

The result, they said, is that some companies, like Veuve Clicquot, the Champagne maker, get a trademark registration, while others are left unprotected.

“Veuve” — the French word for “widow” — would not be widely understood or translated by American consumers, trademark examiners reasoned. “Vêtements,” they concluded, was another matter.