But don't try to grab blue just yet Owens corning has protection for its pink insulation.Competitors have to steer clear of the green gold color of qualitex's distinctive dry cleaning cheap christian louboutin sale pads.Court of appeals answered the question by saying they can, granting trademark protection to the lacquered red soles on french designer christian louboutin's shoes and extending intellectual property law further into the realm of fashion. The decision reverses a lower court's ruling denying louboutin an injunction against ysl, although the appeals court also declined to bar ysl from selling red soled shoes that had red uppers as well.Louboutin's protection, the court said, only covers shoes with contrasting red soles.Supreme court granted trademark protection to the specific color of pads sold to the dry cleaning industry in 2005.Because color is such an integral part of fashion design, courts had been hesitant to extend the same protection to clothes.Companies like tiffany, which has a trademark on the distinctive blue color of its boxes, also took a keen interest in the proceedings. "It's probably good news on balance, said david jacoby, a lawyer with schiff hardin who specializes in intellectual property in the fashion and retail industries. "What the second circuit has said now is, pretty clearly there isn't a separate rule for fashion. " Jacoby said the decision isn't likely to set off an oklahoma land rush for the colors on the.Judge jose cabranes makes it clear that only in cases where a specific color is closely associated with a designer's products will trademark protection be extended.Courts have generally refused to protect colors and designs simply because they are pretty, for example, employing the sublimely counterintuitive phrase"Aesthetic functionality"To decline protection for, among other things, distinctive floral patterns on china. Cabranes restated the primary goal of trademark law, which is enforced under the lanham act:To protect consumers against louboutin outlet being confused about the origin and quality of a product.Functional features, like the handle on a coffee cup or sleeves on a blouse, can't be trademarked although they might possibly win a patent.Few things could be less functional than shiny red paint on the sole of a shoe, where it almost immediately will be scuffed. Louboutin sued ysl, a unit of gucci group, on april 7, 2011 after the fashion house announced plans to sell a line of monocolored shoes, including red shoes with red soles.Louboutin, whose sexy shoes gained widespread fame through the tv show"Sex and the city,"Got a trademark in 2008 on"A lacquered red sole on footwear. " Judge victor marrero declined to issue injunction in august 2011, expressing concern about extending protection to a color. If louboutin owns chinese red for the outsole of high fashion women's shoes, another designer can just as well stake out a claim for exclusive use of another shade of red, or indeed even louboutin's color, for the insole, while yet another could, like the world colonizers of eras past dividing conquered territories and markets, plant its flag on the entire heel for its chinese red.And who is to stop ysl, which declares it pioneered the monochrome design, from trumping the whole foot wear design industry by asserting rights to the single color shoe concept in all shades? Jacoby said designers still have to get over several high bars to protect specific colors.The doctrine of"Aesthetic cheap louboutin functionality"Is still alive and well, and requires a fact intensive inquiry by the court into whether a color is merely attractive, or so closely identified with a company's products that consumers could be misled into buying a copycat if it isn't protected.Competitors can defeat a color trademark if they show their ability to compete would be significantly limited by honoring it. That's how owens corning won protection for its pink insulation:The color serves absolutely no purpose other than to identify the maker, and disappears into the attic, far from view, after it's installed.Now the second circuit has extended that protection to the showier world of fashion although many of the products it will affect will also disappear into closets, never to be seen again. I am a senior editor at forbes, covering legal affairs, corporate finance, macroeconomics and the occasional sailing story.I was the southwest bureau manager for forbes in houston from 1999 to 2003, when i returned home to connecticut for a knight fellowship at yale law school.Before that i worked for bloomberg business news in houston and the late, great dallas times herald and houston post.While i am a chartered financial analyst and have a year of law school under my belt, most of what i know about financial journalism, i learned in texas.

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