The Misadventures of Christian Louboutin: Luxury's Stolen Sole

 Christian Louboutin, A.K.A. Ben Bernankgay.

Last year, Christian Louboutin, lady-shoemaker to everyone willing to pay 600 dollars and up for a pair of high heels, decided to sue upscale fashion label Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) for producing shoes that allegedly infringed upon his "trademark" on the color red.  In his complaint, Louboutin states that he "is the first fashion designer to develop the idea of having red soles on women's shoes." (Emphases mine).  The ratio of words qualifying his accomplishment to those actually stating it indicate that what he has created isn't all that original, but nonetheless his shoes are most easily identified by their signature red outsoles, also known as the Red Sole Mark, as seen below:

The color red; a triumph of design genius. 

In defense of YSL, the four shoes over which Louboutin is making an ordeal happen to be entirely red; not just red on the outsole, but I digress.  What makes this lawsuit unprecedented is that while certain companies have developed and trademarked specific colors in the past, none have ever sued for exclusive use of all shades of a color as it pertained to their product.  Louboutin believes he owns the rights to all ruddy hues when applied to the outsole of a woman's shoe, and the patent office apparently agreed.  He introduced his earth-shattering red sole in 1992, but contrary to what his complaint might lead one to believe, he was by no means the first to do so.  L.L. Bean, currently enjoying its centennial, had developed red-soled shoes over eighty years before Christian Louboutin starting rouging his:

 The Maine Hunting Shoe, originally developed by Leon Leonwood Bean in 1912.

This shade of red, though radically different from Louboutin's, may fall within the overextended reach of Louboutin's lawyers, as L.L. Bean now offers these shoes in women's sizes.  Had Bean decided to file a patent for all red outsoles after the runaway success of his hunting shoe in 1912, Louboutin would just be a Parisian malcontent trying to make blue happen.  Granted, people weren't such litigious dickheads in 1912, but Louboutin should be thankful our current regulatory web didn't exist when he was trying to make his name.  

While my ideas are not fully developed on questions of Intellectual Property (IP), I find it difficult to justify conferring exclusive legal rights over a specific color for any reason.  For the sake of argument, let's say I take a dump, and the resulting turd just so happens to be a perfect shade of Pullman Brown™.  To complicate matters, let's say I then take to eBay and sell the aforementioned turd, because I believe it to be a perfect specimen in every way.  I find a buyer who, seeing what I see in this specimen, agrees to pay the "Buy It Now" price of 600 dollars.  I continue to consume this same diet that produces these same handsome Pullman Brown™ turds, and continue to sell them on eBay for 600 dollars a pop.  Even though I'm not advertising them as Pullman Brown™ turds, UPS - the legal owner of this noble hue - identifies them as such, finds that I am profiting off its trademark, and sues me.  What's troubling is that the only unlikely part of this scenario is me finding a buyer for my excreta.

Patents of this nature seem to deteriorate the concept of property in some ways:  Once I purchase a pair of designer shoes, when do they become mine and not the designer's?  Do they ever?  Can a designer limit what I do with my own property because he still maintains some nebulous, superior right over the shoes I just paid him 600 dollars for?

When asked what she did for a living, my mother, a former Louis Vuitton employee, would matter-of-factly reply, "I sell bullshit to assholes."  This was fair in my estimation.  The vast majority of so-called luxury goods are of dubious quality and made from materials even a plumber would find uninteresting, quite literally.  Most "luxury" bags, which can sell for thousands of dollars, are made from polyvinyl chloride, more commonly referred to as PVC; this is the same plastic from which plumbing pipes are made.  The fact that much of the luxury goods market has shifted away from hand crafting with premium materials to mass producing with cheap materials explains in a large way why it has become fanatically defensive when it comes to protecting its intellectual property:   If the counterfeiters are able to churn out goods that are basically indistinguishable from the "real deal" - as it is often charged that they do - I fail to see much difference between the swindler who has convinced his board of directors to sell a substandard product from the trusted promontory of a premium brand, and the swindler who has exploited that same name without permission; for at least the latter charges a price that acknowledges the quality of his goods.  Louboutin and the rest can more effectively protect their brands by increasing the quality of their product and staying innovative, instead of insisting that governments protect their laziness.