Court cases raise stink over ‘smell-alike’ perfumes use of rival’s IP

Photo by Camille Paralisan on Unsplash

A Netherlands court has recently ruled on a court case brought by perfume giant Coty against Perfumedia, the maker of a range of so-called ‘smell-alike’ perfumes which were sold under the name Petite Mort.

A district court in The Hague provisionally ruled in June 2026 that Petite Mort had infringed Coty trade marks and had also engaged in unlawful comparative advertising.

Much of the case revolved around the use of the words ‘inspired by,’ usually then followed by a well-known Coty trade mark. Also, and in an increasingly e-commerce driven world perhaps more significantly, the defendant was also found to have used multiple Coty brand names as meta tags on its website. Such tags are not immediately viewable by members of the public but are visible to search engines, which means consumers searching for particular brands may see results for other companies’ products.

An analysis of the case on European IP law forum IE-Forum observes that the court heard claims such as: “Individual [Petite Mort] products refer to the well-known brands, for example with designations such as "Sensual Rose – inspired by Chloe EDP". In addition, Petite Mort uses brand names such as Hugo Boss, Chloé, Burberry, and Gucci as product tags in the background of its website, causing consumers searching for these brands to end up with Petite Mort's products.”

According to the IE-Forum piece, “the brand names are used visibly in advertisements as well as invisibly incorporated into product tags that influence the findability of the products.” The judge ruled that it was irrelevant that the internet user, would not see these tags because “they do indeed influence the economic behaviour of consumers.” The judge observed that Petite Mort's business revolves around directing consumers looking for Coty brand perfumes to a site selling end up with Petite Mort's perfumes.

The court also ruled that the Petite Mort marketing was not legitimate comparative advertising for various reasons, including incorrect pricing for Coty brands and a failure to compare like with like on the issue of perfume oil concentrations. Petite Mort’s advertising, the judge said, implied that Coty’s perfumes were tested on animals, which Coty was able to prove was not true.

Major perfume brands face significant competition from ‘smell-alikes’ and are increasingly relying on IP protection in major markets.

This means law courts are seeing major perfume and cosmetics brand owners launching court cases against smaller brands.

For example, in October 2025, The UK High Court ruled on an action brought by L'Oréal alleging trade mark infringement involving its high-end brands, Trésor and Miracle, by various "smell-alike" perfume manufacturers.

An article on the Thomson Reuters Practical Law site covered the case, which saw L'Oréal successful on many, but not all, of its claims.

The High Court ruled that the defendants' packaging did not infringe L'Oréal’s trade marks; but it did find that the similarity of the packaging had breached the Trade Marks Act 1994 (TMA) by taking unfair advantage of the L'Oréal brands’ “character or repute.”

L'Oréal did not succeed, however, in getting a judgement of ‘passing off’ against the defendants.