Hasta La Ideas

We start the morning off with two interesting design-based lawsuits. The first comes from the seemingly litigious-happy shoe company, Christian Louboutin. As you might remember, last week the company filed suit against Yves Saint Laurent over pairs of shoes that company was selling that featured red soles Louboutin considered too close to their own iconic (and trademarked) signature trait. Now they’re at it again, as the company has now filed a very similar suit against the French arm of the Brazilian label Carmen Steffens. In their own defense, the label says it has using multi-colored soles since 1996, “long before Mr Louboutin red soles were registered as a trademark in the U.S. in 2008.” Meanwhile, outside of this newly sparked shoe design battle, the label Coach has filed suit against Jo-Ann Fabrics. Their issue is with a particular fabric (the “Blizzard Fleece Fabric-Oo Geo”) sold by the crafts retailer that they believe looks too similar to Coach’s use of its patterned cacophony of its stretched out, serifed “C” logo. The suit demands that Jo-Ann quit selling the pattern and pay somewhere north of $2 million in damages. So far it looks like the fabric retailer is taking the matter seriously, as the product is still listed on their site, but now with a note: “Sorry, this item is no longer available.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.