Luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton has just won a counterfeit lawsuit against Britney Spears. But this top brand is only one among several who’ve had to turn to the courts to reclaim a tarnished name.

Fendi. Tiffany. Louis Vuitton. These and other top-line luxury brands are determined to protect their name, their reputation and their revenues from counterfeiters who make shoddy imitations and slap on tags with these revered names on them. And they’re willing to go to court for it.

Italian fashion group Fendi S.R.L. and Wal-Mart settled a lawsuit that alleged that the giant retailer’s Sam's Club Warehouse was selling counterfeit handbags, wallets and key chains that they passed off as "genuine" Fendi products. According to Fendi, Wal-Mart had never purchased from them nor asked the fashion company if any of the products bearing its trademark were genuine. Fendi’s products are usually sold only at exclusive department stores and Fendi boutiques.

The lawsuit brought by Tiffany & Co. against eBay under trademark law is underway. The jeweler is claiming that by not effectively policing its website and allowing fake Tiffany items to be sold there, the online auction company has helped violate the Tiffany trademark. Tiffany CEO Michael Kowalsky, testifying against eBay, said that it was “incomprehensible” that eBay didn’t’ know that the pieces being sold on its site were fake. Because eBay fraud is growing, other luxury brands like Gucci, Prada etc are watching the case closely.

Louis Vuitton is in the news – again. The luxury French brand has just won a lawsuit against Sony BMG and MTV Online. The Paris-based company charged that the defendants violated counterfeit laws in a Brittany Spears music video. In the opening scenes, Spears appears in the driver's seat of a Hummer floating on make-believe clouds. But one shot shows fingers drumming on a dashboard covered with what looks like Vuitton's "Cherry Blossoms" design embossed with the "LV" logo. According to a Vuitton spokesperson, a Paris civil court ordered Sony BMG and MTV Online to stop broadcasting or marketing the video for Do Something and fined them 80,000 euros ($117,000) each. Spears herself was not found guilty.

Louis Vuitton, whose signature handbags are a favorite with counterfeiters, has fought vigorously through French and other courts to protect its trademark goods. Just last year, the fashion company sued Google for infringing on its trademark by selling search-related keyword advertising to its competitors. Both a French lower court and the Paris Court of Appeals agreed and ordered Google and its French subsidiary to pay $376,589 (300,000 euros) in damages for trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and misleading advertising.

Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Group (LVMH) is also fighting back in China, winning a lawsuit last year against another French company, Carrefour, who wa charged with selling LVMH branded handbags for $6 when the real thing can be worth more than $880. In one of the first trademark suits between foreign firms in China, a Beijing court reportedly ordered Carrefour to pay $375,000 (£210,000) in damages to LVMH for violating its trademark rights.

Is a change in copyright laws in order?

Under the federal Copyright Act of 1976, the line between design piracy in fashion (copying the cut, shape and silhouette of an item) and counterfeiting (fake goods posing as designer items) is razor-thin. Only artwork is protected: brand labels, logos, original prints and embroidery. The patterns for garments and accessories are not. Fashion industry leaders find these classifications ludicrous and have been lobbying Congress for a bill that would give fashion designs similar protections to those that other creative industries like music and books already have.

According to designer Diane von Furstenberg, president of the New York-based Council of Fashion Designers, "There is no counterfeiting without design piracy." And she is backing a bill pending in the Senate that would amend amend the Copyright Act. The Design Piracy Prohibition Act would extend the protections in fashion design beyond artwork to encompass "the appearance as a whole" (the cut and silhouette) of an article for three years.

Seventh Avenue may agree, but many other legal and fashion experts beg to differ.

Their arguments: It would not really make a dent in fashion piracy but would only increase litigation * The marketplace would not have as many choices as they do now as fashion trends trickle down into many versions * Two or more designers could come up with the same idea within a very narrow time frame * Fashion does not work this way, etc.

In her fashion blog, Lauren Goldstein-Crowe quoted a research paper by legal scholars Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman who said:

“Not only has the lack of copyright protection for fashion designs not destroyed the incentive to innovate in apparel, it may have actually promoted it (emphasis mine). This claim -- that piracy is paradoxically beneficial for fashion designers -- rests on attributes specific to fashion, in particular the status-conferring, or positional, nature of clothing. . . fashion's cyclical nature is furthered and accelerated by a regime of open appropriation. It may even be . . . that to stop copying altogether would be to kill fashion.”

No doubt the proposed law is a hot button. No doubt also that the people behind the luxury brands intend to do whatever they can to fight the counterfeiters who sullying of their good name.