A woman with a child walks past a Louis Vuitton store in Seoul in this undated photo. Newsis

Refurbishing luxury bags into new forms has been ruled a trademark infringement, requiring compensation to the brand.

In a landmark appeal decision, the Patent Court upheld a previous order for a bag repairer to pay Louis Vuitton Malletier 15 million won ($11,500) for refurbishing its bags without authorization, declaring that these alterations effectively created independent new products, risking consumer confusion.

The court ruled Monday that the bag repairer's refurbished products did indeed qualify as "goods" in the marketplace, due to their high resale value in the used luxury market.

"Refurbished products hold significant value on the secondary market, just as the original items do, giving them independent value as products," it said in the ruling.

The bag repairer argued that the refurbished products did not constitute new goods.

However, the court said, "The Louis Vuitton mark remains on the refurbished items without any indication of reworking or that they are recycled, which could mislead the average consumer into thinking they are original Louis Vuitton products," determining that this constituted an infringement by unauthorized use of the brand's trademark.

The court explained that minimal alterations would not qualify as a "new product" and thus would not infringe on trademark rights. However, substantial changes in size, design, or structure, as in the bag repairer's case, resulted in entirely new products, constituting a trademark violation.

Between 2017 and 2021, the bag repairer used original Louis Vuitton fabric provided by clients to craft custom bags and wallets of varying sizes and shapes, charging between 100,000 and 700,000 won per item.

In response, Louis Vuitton filed a lawsuit in February 2022, seeking a ban on the bag repairer's actions and 30 million won in damages, asserting that the bag repairer's practices damaged the brand's identity and quality guarantee.

The initial ruling by the Seoul Central District Court in November 2022 sided with Louis Vuitton, and the latest appeals court decision upheld that judgment.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.