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Twilight Perfume Lawsuit
By Twilight_News | January 15, 2009
Making the rounds today on the Internet is a story about a pending lawsuit by Nina Ricci over the Twilight perfume that is currently being by sold by several vendors. The story is hitting wider today because it just made a celebrity blogger’s radar.
We’d like to preface this by saying that we have no knowledge of who signed what contract, and what exactly the contract stated. We also have no knowledge as to the exact status of the lawsuit: Are papers actually filed with the courts? Are the affected parties trying to reach an out-of-court settlement? We just don’t know. Here’s our sidelines, non-lawyer analysis.
- As far as we understand it, the two scents are entirely different, so this isn’t a suit over the scents.
- The bottle itself is highly similar to the Nina Ricci bottle. It varies slightly in color and in the engraving on the leaves.
- The outer packaging container is entirely different, so this isn’t about the outer packaging.
Question: OK, so what does that mean?
Answer: It depends what was in the original Nina Ricci contract. Did they contract for an original exclusive design and then patent that design (note we are not lawyers and the correct term here may be trademark/copyright/etc.)? It seems like a firm such as Nina Ricci would do this, but we just don’t know as they sure as heck aren’t putting the fine print of their contract out there.
It is not uncommon for a generic container to be used by any number of products. That container is then modified based on the company and product (Think of it as how some bottled waters are in very similar containers and only the label is different.) The same is true, to use a book related example, with the cover art of novels. Oftentimes you will see recycled cover art photshopped into a new design because the images were not a contracted exclusive.
Question: Who exactly is being sued?
Answer: We don’t know. We would assume it is whatever vendor supplied the bottle, as most likely they would be the party responsible for guaranteeing that they had the rights to supply the merchants that particular bottle. Nonetheless, we just don’t know.
Question: Could other companies/people be sued?
Answer: Anything is possible. For all we know this might go down several chains of subcontractors. In our opinion, what it is going to come down to in its most basic terms is this: Did the supplier have the rights to supply a similar item to multiple companies, or did Nina Ricci have an iron-clad exclusive?
January 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am
That there even IS a “Twilight” perfume is pretty sad. Some people will buy anything if it has some connection to our beloved books.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am
oops…
January 15th, 2009 at 11:17 am
you guys are amazing, I didn’t even imagine you would reply to my comment… thank you so very much for the info … and guess we have to wait until both parts make a statement and see what will happen … I just hope it doesn’t affect at all the image of the twilight series …
January 15th, 2009 at 11:17 am
OME! That sucks!
January 15th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
This is so sad! But really how can she even sue because on the link you gave us a while back where it showed how the Twilight bottle looked similer to other ones, there was more then one type of perfume not just the Ricci one… right?
January 15th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
so if i am not mistaken, and i could be asi often am:
when someone patents something, (if this is even an issue about that), they have a certain amount of time where they cam market their product without any other “copycats” or “knock-offs” etc etc being marketed with theirs. so maybe this is the case, i am not sure, but even so its something to think about. maybe one of them had the rights first and the other one wasnt allowed to market yet.
i could be completely mistaken and this could all just be unhelpful, but maybe it is.
still, its kinda sad how this is happening. why does it matter so much? i guess one is losing sales, which is no good, hence why the have that rule.
ok well let me know what you think!
January 15th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Thats sad. I mean its just perfume. Really big deal. Hope all that gets worked out.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Wow I’ve been waiting a while to see if this would really happen, and finally it has. When I first saw those perfume bottles in Hot Topic I went “Oh damn, someones gonna get sued.”
January 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
And why does the twilight bottle look almost the same as the nina ricci? even the bottle caps look identical!!
January 15th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
well the one i smelled smelt so bad it was not even funny!!!!
January 15th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
nina ricci people need to get over themselves.
“OMG your bottle looks like mine the whole world is gonna die!!”wow..stupid much??maybe they liked the bottle nina ricci should be flattered!!lol
January 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Come on guys, keep voting for Rob!
He needs some votes.
http://www.hellomagazine.com/vote/grand-finale2008/menattractive.html
January 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Okay so what the bottles look alike its not the end of the world.
I just want to ask can we still buy the perfume?
can someone answer this for me please thank you. =]
January 15th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Umm…
This is just a little bit ridiculous.
xD
January 15th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
this is kinda sad…..do the two perfumes even smell the same? and can we still by the perfume?
January 15th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
yeah, does this mean that they are pulling the perfume from the shelves at Hot Topic?
January 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
As far as I know, the perfume is still at Hot Topic.. I’m not sure if they’re going to be pulling it from the shelves or not..
January 16th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
gee,i didn’t know perfume was such a big deal
January 16th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I completely agree with the first comment. Yeah, the firsts shirts were reasonable, but I wish Hot Topic had stopped there. Now there’s pencil bags, nasty perfume, Edward Cullen body shimmer, and many more ridiculous items that cheapen the amazing book series.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:40 am
This is Hot Topic’s fault, right? Why did they completely copy the design? I have Nina Ricci perfume right in front of me, and looking at the image I’ve seen on Google, it seems as though they’ve copied it completely. People who designed the original should be annoyed. Why can’t Hot Topic come up with their own designs? Or, better yet, not sell perfume and claim its at all related to a novel.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
From what I know (which is very little), the Nina perfume bottle is made specifically for the Nina perfume. It isn’t a genetic design.
January 24th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Christ, did they SERIOUSLY think they could get away with ripping off someone’s work? Idiots. XD
Get ‘em, Nina!
January 26th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
It’s not Hot Topic getting sued, it’s NECA, the people who made the Twilight perfume. The perfume isn’t getting pulled off the shelves yet, but there are no further shipments being made, so once the perfume is sold out, it’s gone for good…at least, until they settle the lawsuit.
February 15th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
IFF.COM ARE GOING TO BE SUED FOR £10 MILLION FOR MAKING A PERFUME CALLED TWILIGHT AS ARE THE TWILIGHT MOVIE MAKERS FOR THEIR VERSION AND BOTH PARTIES ARE GOING TO BE SUED BY NEW LONDON MEDIA (.NET) OWNERS OF THE IDEA FOR TWILIGHT PERFUME AND OWNERS OF THE TWILIGHTPERFUME.COM DOMAIN NAME AS PROOF.
THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME IFF.COM HAVE BEEN SUED SUCCESSFULLY. GOOGLE “IFF.COM SUED” AND SEE FOR YOURSELF.
February 15th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Look their the same bottle but one is silver and the other is gold.It isn’t a genetic design so Nina has the the right to Sue them so stop butthurtting over this