Clothing brand Levi Strauss likes nothing that even slightly bears a chance for damaging their identity and sales. The company has once again filed a lawsuit over the placement of the brand label on the jeans. Levi Strauss & Co on Friday sued the French luxury house Louis Vuitton Kenzo, accusing the unit of LVMH for putting the tabs on its pants pocket at the back. LVMH recently launched a new clothing line featuring singer Britney Spears. The complaint was filed with the US District Court in San Francisco and it said Kenzo's activities threaten to cause Levi to lose sales and suffer "incalculable and irreparable damage" to its goodwill and confuse shoppers.

Levis Strauss brand has its base of loyal customers and the distinctive tabs at the back pockets on their jeans are a mark of their product identity. They have been doing it since 1936. Kenzo launched their "Britney Spears-La Collection Memento No. 2" in March 2018 and it used the same technique as Levi's. And despite their letters to stop selling the clothing line, the Paris-based brand continued. The complaint filed by Levi's quoted Leo Christopher Lucier, Levi's national sales manager in 1936, as having said: "no other maker of overalls can have any other purpose in putting a coloured tab on an outside patch pocket, unless for the express and sole purpose of copying our mark, and confusing the customer."

Levi's has been extremely careful about their back pocket tab and had sued apparel brand Vineyard Vines LLC for the same in October last year. They too had copied the tab sewn at the back of the jean. Earlier in March, Levi's had also targetted two Chinese companies for copyright infringement for using a similar design of their logo. The company sought for the destruction of those products and $47,000 in damages. For a brand that is so iconic, protecting the identity and sales is always a priority and a little damage to it will ensure action, even if it means heading to the lawyers.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 07, 2018 08:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).