Fashion Industry Blog Post - Dealing With Trademarks In The Metaverse - Hermes Wins MetaBirkins Lawsuit

05/17/2023

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As has been reported, the luxury design house of Hermès has prevailed in its trademark infringement lawsuit against the artist Mason Rothschild over his “MetaBirkins” NFT  project, providing much-needed guidance on how to find a balance between trademark protection under the Lanham Act and artistic freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment.  It is important, however, to take a moment to reflect on how new technology and traditional crafts (such as the handwork on a luxury bag) intersect within the ever-changing digital sphere.

We should consider the nature of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).  An NFT is a digital certificate that “authenticates” a digital asset, such as a digital drawing or a video, as the authentic piece associated with the certificate.   Digital certification helps bring value to digital items that can be easy to copy perfectly: a copy not certified by an NFT is just a copy; only the digital file “traveling” with the NFT is the authorized original. 

Co-contributors: Alan Behr and Nicole Vossius
For full post see: Fashion Industry Law Blog