Last week, Good Clean Love, Inc. (GCL), an Oregon-based woman’s personal hygiene and health company, filed a Trademark infringement lawsuit in Federal District Court against Gwyneth Paltrow’s beauty company, Goop. In its complaint, GCL asserts multiple claims, including federal trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition, and analogous claims under Oregon state law.

The root of the dispute is that Goop is allegedly using a tagline that is confusingly similar to GCL’s house brand. GCL says it has used “Good Clean Love” for its line of sexual health products for over 20 years, while Goop has used “Good. Clean. Goop.” for its similar sexual health supplement for a much shorter time period.

In order to determine whether there is a “likelihood of consumer confusion,” Courts look at not only the similarity of the trademarks themselves, but also the similarity of the underlying products. Trademarks do not need to be identical - it is enough if they are similar in sound, appearance, meaning, or commercial impression. If, overall, there is a likelihood of confusion, whoever used the trademark in US commerce first, has superior rights, and can stop the junior user from continuing their use of the infringing trademark.

The Goop case is a good example of a “Reverse Confusion” trademark infringement, where a newer bigger company comes onto the market and overwhelms the trademark and commercial standing of the older company, who actually has superior rights, despite being smaller.

In addition to impacting their sales, GCL worries that the confusion will damage their reputation. They allege that Goop uses known harmful chemicals in its products, whereas GCL’s products are “truly clean.” If consumers start to think that Goop produces the GCL’s product, consumers will also believe that GCL’s products contain these harmful ingredients.

Goop, on the other hand, called the lawsuit “meritless.” Interestingly, according to GCL, the day after Goop received GCL’s pre-suit cease and desist letter, they doubled down with their use of the infringing tagline, flooding the market. We will see if this is predictive of how Goop defends their position.

Filing this law suit does not come without risks for GCL. Because their house trademark is comprised of basic words in a somewhat descriptive order (“good”, “clean” and “love”), it could be deemed generic. This would leave them at risk of a viable counter-attack by Goop, which would be a devastating loss for the company. The reality is, there may come a time when a trademark owner finds themselves in a defensive position. The stronger a trademark, the easier it is to defend, which ideally will inform a company owner during the process of choosing their brand name.