Danish Designer Loses Trademark Appeal Over Using Her Name

Danish fashion designer Benedikte Utzon can’t use her own name to market her designs after a ruling by Denmark’s Supreme Court that some attorneys call precedent-setting.

The court also found, Dec. 20, that Utzon’s commercial use of her name on social media accounts constituted trademark infringement. Utzon is not entitled to cite the “own name” legal defense in the dispute over a third-party’s use of her name, it said.

“This is very wide-reaching,” Claus Barrett Christiansen, an attorney at the Bech-Bruun legal firm, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 22. “The decision is limiting the own name defense to the greatest possible ...