A Rival Perfume Bottle Looked Only a Little Like Chanel’s No. 5. The EU Trademark Office Refused to Register It Anyway.

The IP Runway: Issue No. 17

Intellectual property insights for the global business of fashion.

When a Bottle Does Not Have to Be Copied to Be Borrowed From

Edition seventeen is about a bottle that shoppers recognize without its label. Two editions ago, the fight was over a stripe. This time it is a plain rectangular bottle, and the question is the same: can a shape alone belong to a luxury house?

On October 9, the European Union Intellectual Property Office rejected a rival’s trademark application for a perfume bottle that looked only a little like Chanel’s No. 5. The rival did not have to copy the bottle for Chanel to win. The office decided that the bottle’s fame was enough.

The case, fast

Chaos Perfumes, a Romanian company, applied in April 2024 to register the shape of a perfume bottle as a European Union trademark. Chanel opposed. It relied on its French trademark registration for the three-dimensional shape of the No. 5 bottle and its stopper.

On October 9, 2026, the Opposition Division of the EU Intellectual Property Office, known as the EUIPO, upheld Chanel’s opposition and rejected the application in full.

The office did not find the two bottles alike. It described their visual and conceptual similarity as low. Both have a compact rectangular body, rounded corners, a short neck, and a broad flat stopper, but they differ in color, label, and wording.

Chanel also did not have to show that shoppers would confuse the two. It relied on the rule that protects trademarks with a reputation, which lets a brand object when a later mark would take unfair advantage of that reputation. The office found that French consumers would likely link the Chaos bottle to Chanel’s, and that the link would make the newer bottle easier to recognize and remember.

A plain bottle, a famous shape, and a rival told no.

Proving that a bottle can be a brand

The hard part for Chanel was showing that the shape itself, and not the name on it, pointed to Chanel. Chaos argued that bottles are seen as packaging, and that the design had become ordinary.

The office accepted that Chanel’s bottle has low inherent distinctiveness, because it is a container for perfume. It still found that Chanel had used the shape as a trademark in France and that the shape has a significant reputation there. It did not treat the bottle as merely packaging, because Chanel had presented it in a way that can show where the product comes from.

The evidence ran from advertising and press coverage to exhibitions and appearances in art, including works by Andy Warhol. Some of it showed the bottle without the CHANEL or No. 5 names. The most striking piece was a 2016 survey in France, in which 72% of respondents spontaneously linked the unbranded bottle to Chanel.

Chaos argued that none of this showed recognition apart from Chanel’s branding. The office did not accept that. In its view, the shape had been promoted in a way that told shoppers who stood behind the product, name or no name.

Seventy-two percent saw a bottle with no name on it and thought of Chanel.

Why this matters beyond one bottle

Reputation can do the work of resemblance. The office found only a low degree of similarity and still ruled for Chanel. Different colors, a different label, and different words did not save the rival bottle.

The proof is the asset. A shape does not protect itself. Chanel had decades of advertising, press, exhibitions, and consumer research to point to, and that record is what carried the case. For any house with an iconic shape, the archive matters as much as the registration.

Rights and reputation can sit in different places. Chanel’s earlier registration was French, and the reputation was proved in France. The application it stopped was for a European Union trademark.

Two cautions. This is a first-level decision from the EUIPO’s Opposition Division, and it remains open to appeal. It also does not give Chanel exclusive rights over rectangular perfume bottles in general. It concerns one registered shape, the reputation proved for it, and the similarities found between these two bottles.

Reading the runway

Luxury houses are often described as selling a name. This case shows that they can also own a silhouette, and that a silhouette can be as hard to borrow from as a logo.

For a house, it is a reminder that what is built over decades outside the courtroom, in campaigns, exhibitions, and public memory, is what it later puts on the scale inside one.

Chanel did not need a copy to win. It needed a shape that people recognize without being told whose it is.

More soon.

The IP Runway

Sources: Lux Juris and Stobbs, reporting on Chanel v. Chaos Perfumes, EUIPO Opposition Division, October 9, 2026 (Opposition No. B 3 224 328); World Trade Mark Review.