Katie Perry v Katy Perry: Sydney fashion designer wins 16-year trademark dispute with US pop star | Australian law

The Sydney fashion designer behind the Katie Perry brand has won her epic trademark dispute with US pop star Katy Perry after a legal battle that lasted almost 17 years.

In a majority decision on Wednesday, Australia’s highest court ruled that the designer’s label did not violate trademark laws and was not likely to cause confusion, regardless of the singer’s reputation at the time it was registered.

Fashion designer Katie Taylor, whose real name is Katie Perry, applied to register it as a trade name in April 2007. The court heard that he had not heard of the singer at the time.

The designer later filed to trademark “Katie Perry” to sell clothing in September 2008, several months after the release of Perry’s first hit single, I Kissed a Girl.

When the singer, whose real name is Katheryn Hudson, made her Australian debut, her team created an online store selling “Katy Perry” branded products worldwide in October 2008.

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The epic legal battle began in May 2009, when the singer filed a notice against registering Taylor’s trademark and sent cease and desist letters to the Australian designer.

Despite this, the singer’s manager, Steven Jensen, told Perry that his team was “not trying to protect her.” [Taylor] from doing business under his name.”

“We…did not attempt to prevent him from doing business under his name, and we certainly did not sue him for trademark infringement,” Jensen said in a June 2009 email to Perry, according to the high court’s decision.

Jensen also attempted to persuade Perry to issue a statement, telling the singer that “the tabloids, as is common in Australia, took this and turned it into a ‘story’.”

However, the singer told Jensen she wanted him to “leave me completely out of this.”

“Stupid bitches. I wouldn’t even bother with that [if] MTV doesn’t understand this nonsense, Perry wrote in an email cited in the decision.

“Stupid bitch! Rawr!”

‘Very deliberate’

In July 2009, “Katie Perry” was officially entered into the Australian trademark registration, which the designer uses across her clothing range and to promote her brand.

The singer’s trademark “Katy Perry”, which does not cover clothing, was registered in Australia in November 2011.

Nearly eight years later, Taylor sued the singer in federal court, claiming her trademark had been infringed by the sale of “Katy Perry” branded clothing in Australia.

In 2008, Perry applied to cancel the designer’s trademark through cross-litigation, claiming that he had a sufficiently large reputation in Australia that Taylor’s label was “likely to deceive or cause confusion”.

Taylor won the case initially in 2023, and the court ruled that the singer’s record label, Kitty Purry, was involved in trademark infringement during her 2014 Prismatic tour.

But the designer lost his appeal in 2024, when three appellate judges unanimously overturned the original findings and upheld Perry’s cross-claim, ordering the registration of Taylor’s trademark to be cancelled.

Taylor then took his case to Australia’s highest court.

On Wednesday, three Supreme Court justices Jayne Jagot, Simon Steward and Jacqueline Gleeson sided with Taylor.

The justices rejected Perry’s lawyers’ argument that the singer had already established a significant reputation in Australia by the time Taylor applied for the “Katie Perry” trademark in 2008, saying it did not extend to clothing.

The court ruled that Perry’s brand, Kitty Purry, and international product distributor Bravado had “zealously infringed” Taylor’s trademark.

The judges noted that most of the goods Perry sold in Australia were marked by a “very deliberate” act, although she had voluntarily registered the “Katy Perry” trademark to exclude clothing.

Following the decision, a spokesperson for the singer said: “Katy Perry never sought to close Ms Taylor’s business or prevent her from selling clothing under the KATIE PERRY label.”

“Today, in a 3:2 decision, the high court ruled that Ms. Taylor’s trademark can remain registered. [also] “We have referred the case back to the Full Federal Court to determine the issues raised by Katy Perry, including Ms Taylor’s 10-year delay in bringing her claim against Katy Perry,” the spokesperson said.

Taylor’s attorneys have been contacted for comment.