By
Allen Adamson is Co-Founder of Metaforce, Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, and an expert witness in trademark, branding, and consumer perception disputes.
This article explores how Lululemon’s recent federal trademark registration for the phrase “LULULEMON DUPE” signifies a strategic shift from traditional brand defense to monetization.
Originally published May 20, 2026 in Law .com.
The filing changes the harm story brand owners can tell in court. Trademark counsel still running the old playbook on dupe cases are about to lose ground they did not know they were standing on.
On October 21, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Lululemon a federal registration for the mark LULULEMON DUPE. One of the most disciplined premium retailers in North America now owns, on the federal record, the commercial use of the phrase its imitators have ridden for years.
The legal press read the registration as a defensive play. A way to police the dupe ecosystem without chasing every TikTok account and every Costco aisle. That reading is not wrong. It is just incomplete.
The registration is also evidence. Evidence that the brand owner has assigned a commercial value to the conversation about the cheaper version of its product. Evidence that the value is high enough to justify federal protection. And once a brand owner takes that step, the harm story that has carried dupe litigation for the better part of a decade stops fitting the facts.
That shift matters more than the registration itself. It changes what trademark counsel can credibly argue in court.
The old harm story worked because brands acted like victims.
For the last ten years, trademark counsel in dupe cases has argued some version of the same story. The brand owner builds a product. A copycat sells a cheaper version. The copycat profits. The original brand loses sales, customers, and equity. Courts have heard this story enough times that it has become the default frame.
It worked because it matched what brand owners were actually doing in the market. They were policing copycats. They were sending cease and desist letters. They were defending the integrity of the original. The story in court tracked the behavior in commerce.
The Lululemon registration breaks that match. A brand owner that secures federal rights to the phrase LULULEMON DUPE is not policing the cheaper version of its product. It is monetizing the conversation about it. The behavior in commerce no longer supports the story in court.
Monetization is not a side note. It is the whole argument.
Read the registration carefully. It does not cover apparel. It covers retail services, advertising, and marketing. Lululemon now controls, by federal law, the commercial use of the phrase LULULEMON DUPE in influencer campaigns, paid search, product listings, and affiliate marketing.
That is not the language of a brand fighting a copycat. That is the language of a brand claiming a revenue stream.
Aritzia filed for ARITZIA DUPE in March 2025. The pattern is not a coincidence. It is a category move. Premium retailers that have watched TikTok creators and discount aisles eat into their margins are not giving up on the fight. They are changing the shape of it.
The old harm story does not have a place for this. It assumes the brand owner is fighting the conversation about the dupe. It cannot accommodate a brand owner that has decided to charge admission to it.
Reasonable royalty is the lens that already fits.
The framework that does fit is reasonable royalty. The question it asks is the right one. What would the brand owner have charged for the commercial use of the phrase LULULEMON DUPE if the parties had sat down at a table?
That question survives the registration. In fact, the registration strengthens it. The brand owner has now publicly assigned a commercial value to the phrase. It has gone to federal expense to protect that value. Any third party that has been running paid campaigns, affiliate links, or product listings on the same phrase for the last decade has been collecting on something the brand owner now treats as a revenue stream.
Lost sales arguments will still come up in dupe cases. Some will succeed. But the heavy lifting is going to move to the question of what the unauthorized commercial use of the brand association was worth, because that is the question the brand owner has just answered with a federal registration.
Read the registration as the precedent it will become.
None of this happens overnight. The Lululemon registration will be challenged. Aritzia’s application is still pending. The doctrine will adjust over years, not months.
But the record is being made now. Federal filings are being granted on theories the old damages playbook does not handle. The brand owners that follow Lululemon will be making the same record.
The trademark attorneys who see what the registration is, and not just what it does, will be the ones their clients call first.
