On September 17, 2026, the Paris Judicial Court ruled in favour of Louis Vuitton in a trademark case against Kamad Reworked, a French company that made clothing, jewellery, and accessories from pieces cut out of genuine Louis Vuitton products. The court found trademark infringement, unfair competition, and parasitism, and ordered Kamad and its three managers to pay €920,000 in damages. It is the second such ruling from the same court against the same company this year, after a May decision in favour of CHANEL .
The case is not a story about counterfeits. The goods Kamad started with were real. That is exactly why it is a useful test of three ideas people often assume will protect a reseller or a designer: the first-sale rule, artistic freedom, and sustainability.
What Kamad did, and what the court found
According to reports of the judgment, Kamad dismantled authentic Louis Vuitton bags, towels, suitcases, and other items and incorporated the pieces into new garments and accessories that carried Louis Vuitton’s marks. Kamad described its work as an aesthetic and artistic approach built on eco-responsible values. The court also looked at how the products were presented, including the Louis Vuitton name used in Instagram hashtags and provenance labels, and concluded that the marks were not merely decorative.
Kamad relied on three main defences: trademark exhaustion, environmental protection, and freedom of expression. The court rejected all three.
Defence one: exhaustion
Exhaustion, often called the first-sale rule, says that once a trademark owner puts goods on the market, or allows them to be put there, it cannot control their resale. The Paris court accepted that the original Louis Vuitton items had been lawfully marketed in Europe. But it held that exhaustion only protects goods resold as they are. What Kamad sold were new products, not the goods Louis Vuitton had originally placed on the market, so making and selling them needed the brand’s consent.
This goes a step beyond the May Chanel decision. In that case, Kamad could not show that the Chanel-branded components came from goods sold with Chanel’s consent, although the court said exhaustion would not have applied even if they had. In the Louis Vuitton case, the lawful origin of the source goods was not the problem, and the court still found exhaustion unavailable.
Defence two: artistic freedom
Kamad argued its work was creative. The court said that to claim protection as a creative work, the imprint of the author’s personality has to be shown, and here it was not: the base garments were ordinary, and only the Louis Vuitton inserts stood out. It added that even a genuinely original work does not dispense with the need for the trademark owner’s authorisation when it is commercially exploited.
Defence three: environmental protection
This is the part of the judgment likely to be discussed most. The court noted that the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights calls for a high level of environmental protection and that intellectual property rights can be restricted in the public interest if the restriction is proportionate. But it found no national or European provision allowing a property right to be limited on the ground of upcycling. On the facts, it found that the items were “not damaged,” had value on the second-hand market, and could have been resold as they were. By cutting them up, the court said, Kamad stimulated demand for new products rather than preserving what already existed. It concluded the purpose was profit, and that even if there were an environmental purpose, the infringement would be disproportionate.
It is worth reading that carefully. The court did not rule that upcycling is unlawful in general. Its reasoning rested on these facts, and commentators have noted that the judgment leaves open how a case would be treated where the source goods were damaged or unsellable.
The consequences
The €920,000 breaks down as €750,000 for infringement of Louis Vuitton’s reputed marks, €10,000 for infringement of a separate French figurative mark, and €160,000 for unfair competition and parasitism, with costs on top. The court also ordered destruction of the products identified in the judgment and publication of the decision, including a summary on Kamad’s own website and social accounts for three months and an extract in two fashion publications chosen by Louis Vuitton. The managers were held personally liable, because the court found they had steered the business toward infringement. This is a first-instance judgment, and the coverage reviewed for this piece does not say whether Kamad will appeal.
What this means for India
Indian law approaches the same problem through Section 30 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. Under Section 30(3), selling lawfully acquired goods that were put on the market by the proprietor or with its consent is not infringement. Section 30(4) removes that protection where there are legitimate reasons for the proprietor to oppose further dealings, in particular where the condition of the goods has been changed or impaired after they were put on the market. In Kapil Wadhwa v. Samsung Electronics, the Delhi High Court’s Division Bench held that India follows international exhaustion, and read “changed or impaired” to cover things like repackaging and relabelling. A more recent Delhi High Court decision on refurbished hard drives, reported by Conventus Law, held that resale of refurbished goods is protected by exhaustion, while clarifying that Section 30(4) does not by itself make an act infringing: the owner must still show infringement under Section 29.
So the Paris line between resale as-is and making something new maps onto a question an Indian court would also ask: is the dealer reselling the same goods, or has the product been transformed, and does the use otherwise meet the test for infringement? India’s large thrift, resale, and reworked-fashion market makes that question practical. The safer course for any business working with branded second-hand goods is to separate plain resale from transformation, avoid using a brand’s name in a way that suggests affiliation, and take advice before building a product line around someone else’s marks.
Sources consulted for this piece: IP Twins (October 29, 2026), FashionUnited (UK and Spain editions), The Fashion Law , Lux Juris | Fashion & Luxury Law, Les Carnets du Luxe, and Affiches Parisiennes, all reporting on Louis Vuitton Malletier v. Kamad Reworked (Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, September 17, 2026, RG No. 24/07925); for India, the text of Section 30 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, Lexology and Chambers on exhaustion and parallel imports in India, R K Dewan on Section 30(4), and Conventus Law on the refurbished hard drives decision. This piece was independently researched and written; no text has been reproduced from any source beyond the short quoted phrase above. It is a first-instance judgment, and the position may change.
