Louis Vuitton Malletier, S.A. v. My Other Bag, Inc., 1:14-cv-03419

Louis Vuitton sued My Other Bag (MOB) for trademark infringement, dilution, and copyright infringement over MOB’s parody canvas tote bags modeled on Louis Vuitton handbags.
The district court granted summary judgment to MOB; the Second Circuit affirmed and the Supreme Court denied certiorari.
MOB moved for an award of attorney’s fees and costs under the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1117(a)) and the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 505).
The central legal question was whether this case was an “exceptional” case warranting fee-shifting under the standards articulated in Octane Fitness and Fogerty (considering frivolousness, motivation, objective unreasonableness, and deterrence).
The court examined the substantive strength and reasonableness of Louis Vuitton’s trademark and copyright claims, litigation conduct, and broader policy concerns about policing trademarks versus chilling enforcement.
The court denied MOB’s fee motion, concluding Louis Vuitton’s claims were nonfrivolous, its litigation conduct did not amount to exceptional misconduct, and deterrence/compensation considerations did not justify fees.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Recovery of fees under the Lanham Act: whether this was an "exceptional" case	Louis Vuitton argued its claims were legally and factually supportable and not frivolous	MOB argued LV’s claims were objectively unreasonable, vexatious, and evidence-light, warranting fees	Denied — court found LV’s claims were nonfrivolous, fact-intensive, and not litigated with exceptional misconduct
Applicability of Octane Fitness standard to Lanham Act fee requests	Implicitly supported application of totality-of-circumstances test	MOB relied on Octane Fitness factors to show exceptionality	Court assumed Octane standard could apply but denied fees on the merits regardless
Recovery of fees under the Copyright Act: whether LV’s copyright claim was unreasonable	LV maintained its fair-use and copyright arguments were colorable and fact-dependent	MOB argued LV’s copyright theory was weak and improperly relied on outdated presumptions	Denied — court found LV’s copyright claim not frivolous; fair-use analysis was fact-intensive
Deterrence and policing tension: whether awarding fees is needed to deter trademark bullying	LV argued owners must police marks or risk loss; aggressive enforcement can be legitimate	MOB argued LV’s enforcement reputation and scale justify deterrence via fees	Denied — court declined to label LV a systemic "trademark bully" on this record and cautioned against chilling trademark policing

Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1749 (2014) (adopted totality-of-the-circumstances test for exceptional-case fee awards)
Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994) (discretionary fee-shifting in copyright cases guided by multiple factors)
Twin Peaks Prods., Inc. v. Publ’ns Int’l, Ltd., 996 F.2d 1366 (2d Cir. 1993) (Second Circuit precedent requiring bad faith for Lanham Act fee awards prior to Octane)
Patsy’s Brand, Inc. v. I.O.B. Realty, Inc., 317 F.3d 209 (2d Cir. 2003) (Lanham Act fee discussion in Second Circuit)
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 136 S. Ct. 1979 (2016) (fee award discretion and consideration of reasonableness of losing party’s position)
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994) (establishing modern fair-use analysis)
Starbucks Corp. v. Wolfe’s Borough Coffee, Inc., 588 F.3d 97 (2d Cir. 2009) (trademark fair use and multifactor analysis)
Polaroid Corp. v. Polarad Elecs. Corp., 287 F.2d 492 (2d Cir. 1961) (multi-factor likelihood-of-confusion test)