Trademark dispute over distribution rivals CJ and Lotte ‘On Style’

Lotte Shopping, controversy over launch of CJ OnStyle similar platform
CJ "Obvious plagiarism... legal action being prepared"
Lotte "No intention to infringe trademark rights... legal advice in progress"

[Anchor]

CJ announced legal action, claiming that Lotte's new platform plagiarized its representative fashion platform, OnStyle. CJ is ‘On Style’ and Lotte is ‘On and the Style’, and they are similar from name to design. In particular, Lotte called it ‘On Style’ in its advertising video.

On the 25th, CJ sent Lotte a certificate of contents to initiate legal proceedings, and Lotte Shopping plans to determine the level of response after consulting with external legal experts. This is an exclusive report by reporter Moon Da-ae.

[reporter]

On the left is Lotte’s recently launched fashion platform ‘ON AND THE STYLE’, and on the right is ‘CJ ONSTYLE’, CJ’s representative distribution platform and fashion business.

The two brands, which have similar names, look exactly like twins from their logo images.
Lotte writes ‘AND THE’ in small letters among the ‘On and the Style’ notation, so that ‘ON’ and ‘STYLE’ are directly connected, reminding us of CJ’s ‘On Style’.

The unique design concept is also similar. CJ OnStyle is characterized by ‘repeated use of a circular design’ using its signature color ‘purple’. This was registered as a trademark by CJ in 2003.

However, Lotte also selected ‘purple’ as its core color and repeatedly used ‘circular design’.

It is more difficult to distinguish when watching video advertisements. Lotte used ‘On Style’ in its video advertisement. On the first screen of the video, after ‘On Style’ appears, ‘Ander’ is written in small letters and then disappears.

From the brand name to the logo design and advertising video, ‘On Style’ is highlighted, so it seems likely that general consumers will mistake it for CJ.

CJ OnStyle, which was launched in 2004 as CJ ENM's representative fashion lifestyle channel, has been known to the public as a fashion brand for nearly 20 years. It is also widely used as the cover of CJ ENM's fashion channel, and has long been recognized by the public as a fashion-related e-commerce service.

CJ OnStyle, which is developing a number of fashion PB brands, is the core of CJ's fashion business, and based on its high recognition, it became the first in the industry to enter the ‘Fashion 1 trillion club’ last year.

CJ suspects that latecomer Lotte has borrowed CJ's brand image without permission to attract consumers. Experts are of the opinion that there is a risk of legal conflict.

[Kim Dong-jin/Attorney at Daeryun Law Firm]

“With respect to CJ and Lotte’s On Style and On & the Style, the fact that they are similar in terms of trade conventions will be a big problem. In the case of Lotte, they added Ander in between the On Style and ended up showing a similar form to CJ On Style, the main color is purple, and in conclusion, even the video advertisements give the impression that they are similar, so there are many aspects that can be considered trademark law violations.”

CJ's trademark registration period is also much ahead of others. CJ registered ‘On Style’ in 2003, and Lotte registered ‘On and the Style’ in 2018.

However, Lotte's trademark rights were limited to offline use and there were no online trademark rights. Accordingly, Lotte additionally registered trademark rights for e-commerce in August of this year, saying it would expand its fashion business online.

However, Lotte's new trademark registration is also raising suspicions of plagiarism.

This is because new logo designs have been registered for the two services, Beauty (On and the Beauty) and Luxury (On and the Luxury), but the fashion (On and the Style) service logo has not been registered. This is the reason why it is pointed out that it took into account the case where trademark rights overlap with those of CJ and cannot be registered.

CJ said, “This is a case where the brand name as well as the logo image were expressed to look quite similar. We are aware of the seriousness internally and are considering legal action.”

On the other hand, Lotte countered, saying, “It is a coincidence and there is no intention to infringe trademark rights.” Lotte Shopping launched the ‘On and the’ series of vertical services for each product group to strengthen its online business ‘Lotte On’ this year, and ‘On and the Style’ is also part of that.

Regarding the similarity between the advertisement and the image, he explained, “Purple is a trend color of the year, so this is reflected,” and “The emphasis on OnStyle at the beginning of the advertisement is simply to emphasize ‘style.’”

In addition, regarding the fact that the logo design was not registered only for the fashion (On and the Style) business, he explained, “It was because the design was not finalized at the time.”

Lotte plans to decide on a response plan after consulting with legal counsel.
As the two sides are currently competing, the outcome is difficult to predict.

[Kim Dong-jin/Attorney at Daeryun Law Firm]

“If these plagiarism controversies continue to arise, there is a concern that the overall competitiveness of the domestic industry may eventually weaken, so it seems that such risky plagiarism should be taken into consideration.”

This is Moon Da-ae of Edaily TV.

View full article - [Exclusive] Trademark dispute over distribution rivals CJ and Lotte ‘On Style’ (edaily.co.kr)