On the basis of their product lines alone we’d support the Germans on this one. You won’t find too many fans of the garish rubber shoes in this office.

Footnoted.org (via ATL ) has been digging around in the quarterly reports of various companies following this quarter’s filings. They found this disclosure in the 10-Q (US quarterly report) of Crocs:

On May 11, 2009, Crocs Europe B.V. received a letter from Dr. Ing. H.c.F. Porsche AG (”Porsche”) claiming that the Company’s use of the “Cayman” shoe model designator infringes upon their Community Trademark Registration of the mark “CAYMAN” in class 25. Porsche is requesting that Crocs Europe B.V. immediately cease and desist use of the Cayman mark and pay Porsche’s attorney’s fees in conjunction with the issuance of the notice letter. On July 30, 2009 the Company was served with notice of an injunction against Crocs Europe BV’s use of the Cayman mark in Germany.

As footnoted point out, few people are likely to confuse Crocs’ Cayman sandal for the Porsche Cayman given one sells for less than 30 quid and the other starts at 30 grand, and various other subtle differences. Thus we wouldn’t rate Porsche’s chances of success in the UK and our support of Porsche over Crocs can be put down purely to product bias rather than logic.

On the legal side, we don’t know which law firms have been instructed yet but if anyone is likely to benefit from this exercise, they will.

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