Bellure marketed affordable perfumes designed to imitate L'Oréal fragrances and distributed comparative tables stating that 'Bellure product X is equivalent to L'Oréal perfume Y'.

L'Oréal sued, relying not so much on consumer confusion, since consumers knew they were buying an imitation, but on parasitic exploitation of the reputation of the mark.

The CJEU held that using a reputed trademark to promote or present one’s own products, thereby obtaining an unfair advantage from the reputation of that mark, constitutes infringement even in the absence of a likelihood of confusion.

This is the essence of anti-free-riding protection: you cannot build your own commercial reputation on the back of someone else’s. Any commercial reference to a famous trademark must be analysed legally before use.