Brands redraw IP playbooks amid dupes, Sora dispute and trade shifts

This week closed with brand owners redrawing their playbooks as copycats, generative video labels and shifting trade rules exerted new pressure on trademark enforcement. From fashion to video platforms and from border policy to global registries, the week signaled a coordinated tightening of the brand playbook.

In apparel and beauty, brands moved beyond reactive takedowns. Lululemon secured registration for LULULEMON DUPE in a bid to "control the narrative" while experts at Conair and the Estée Lauder Companies advocated multifactor, creative tactics against products that skirt the edges of traditional infringement, reframing trademark enforcement as a proactive strategy.

Signals from European courts strengthened that shift. After a favorable ruling from the Brussels Court of Appeal, a representative for Dr Martens argued that non-traditional marks face "undeserved criticism" and said "Consumers don’t just see a yellow stitch, they see Dr Martens," illustrating how position marks can convert design codes into trademark enforcement leverage.

The debate leapt into the video arena when celebrity video app Cameo filed suit accusing OpenAI of trademark infringement tied to a "Cameo" feature on Sora 2. The case shows how feature naming inside rapidly evolving generators can collide with existing brands and drag trademark enforcement into media workflows that also kept Stability AI in the headlines.

Policy voices added nuance. Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid urged patience with the call to "Let fair use work its magic" while arguing that most current training practices fail the fair use test and require more transparency, a stance likely to inform trademark enforcement as October 2025 policy updates set expectations for disclosure.

Litigation and trade rules also shifted the risk calculus. Design patent disputes are rising in the United States, the Northern District of Illinois remains the dominant venue, and patent owners win about two-thirds of cases that reach a judgment, while higher derivative tariffs on steel and aluminium create a "new layer of friction" at the US border that could expose counterfeits and redirect trademark enforcement toward emerging hotspots such as Egypt.

Jurisdictional changes carried immediate consequences. A court in Tanzania ruled ARIPO trademark registrations designating the country unenforceable, a local expert warning of a "profound and immediate impact," while WIPO’s next leadership contest narrowed to Daren Tang and Haiti’s former director of industrial property and legal affairs, and IP office updates added Ukraine to TMview and signaled that Qatar will accept industrial designs, each step with quiet implications for trademark enforcement.

Demand indicators pointed up. Trademark filings reached a three-year peak in Canada, the EU, the UK and the US, an opinion column argued that ".brand" gTLDs offer a new trust signal beyond a technical upgrade, and rapid-fire items ranged from Trump criticizing Perlmutter’s return to a Hong Kong counterfeits crackdown and brand updates involving Levi’s, the New York Knicks, Stability AI and Universal, all reinforcing how domain strategy, reputation and trademark enforcement are becoming inseparable.

For the UK startup ecosystem, a visible Dr Martens victory on position marks combined with elevated filing activity suggests a market that rewards early registration and distinctive design choices. For global investment, the week’s mix of court rulings, product naming disputes and registry modernization points to a cycle where legal clarity becomes an asset class and trademark enforcement becomes the operational heartbeat of enterprise content in a world racing ahead of regulation.