![]() ![]() Six months after being handed an initial loss, Gucci responded to the USPTO’s refusal. In short: the horsebit was “a decorative element on shoes.” It was not, in the trademark examining attorney’s mind, a symbol that served to indicate the source of the shoes goods. In the summer of 2013, a few months after Gucci’s legal team filed its trademark application for registration for the horsebit, the USPTO’s examiner Saima Makhdoom, Esq issued a preliminary refusal, asserting that the design was just that … a “merely ornamental” design. However, despite such longstanding use by Gucci, the USPTO was not quick to register the horsebit mark. According to the application, which sought to register a “three-dimensional horsebit design mark” for use on footwear, Gucci had been using the horsebit on shoes since 1953. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) in 2013. With the staying power of the horsebit in mind, Gucci’s American arm filed an application to federally register the horsebit as a trademark with the U.S. (Although there is some debate, at least according to Forever 21, as to whether the striped marks actually function as trademarks as opposed to decorative design elements). Guccio Gucci had started using the horsebit design on his brand’s leather goods “after working at The Savoy, in London, where he’d been inspired by the aesthetic of the English racing set.” In the time since he and his son first added the symbol – as well as the house’s interlocking “G”, its stylized name, and its red and green, and red and blue striped patterns – to the brand’s wares, these insignia have simultaneously come to distinguish Gucci’s products from those of others and to lure in consumers that want a piece of the brand’s reputation for luxury, quality, and fashionability. How do you explain the enduring influence of the otherwise simple shoe? “The difference is the horsebit,” Ellen Goldstein, professor of accessories design at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, told AdWeek a few years ago. ![]() Gucci’s New York trip and the subsequent introduction of Gucci’s horse bit loafers, and the brand’s staple footwear offering has enjoyed what fashion critics and analysts can unanimously agree is “remarkable longevity.” ![]() The finishing touch? Affixed to each shoe’s upper was a golden-hued horsebit, a staple Gucci symbol. Gucci returned to Gucci’s headquarters in Italy, he set out to add a leather loafer to the house’s lineup of goods. During his visit, the eldest son in the Gucci family – who had just been appointed chairman of the family leather goods business following his father, Gucci founder Guccio Gucci’s death – noticed just how many American men were wearing simply crafted, slip-on loafers. ![]()
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