Ivanka Trump, Italy's Aquazzura end 'Wild Thing' shoe lawsuit

[November 18, 2017]  By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Italian shoemaker Aquazzura Italia SRL has dismissed its lawsuit accusing Ivanka Trump of stealing the design of its "Wild Thing" stiletto-heeled shoe for her own, less-expensive "Hettie" model.

Aquazzura, Trump and co-defendant Marc Fisher Holdings, which partnered in 2010 with the daughter of the now U.S. President Donald Trump to sell her shoes, agreed to dismiss all claims and counterclaims, according to a filing on Friday with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

It was unclear from the filing whether the case had been settled. Lawyers for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Aquazzura has called the Hettie shoe "virtually an exact copy" of the Wild Thing, which sells for $785 and has been worn by what it called "celebrities and 'it' girls" like model Kendall Jenner and singer Solange Knowles.

The Hettie has cost roughly one-sixth as much, and Aquazzura had said the defendants' "flagrant copying" would confuse and siphon away the Florence-based company's customers.

Ivanka Trump attends women's entrepreneurship event during the IMF/World Bank annual meetings in Washington, U.S., October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

Ivanka Trump and Marc Fisher denied infringing Aquazzura's rights. They had sought to declare unenforceable an Aquazzura design patent for a pom-pom and tassels on the Wild Thing.

The case is Aquazzura Italia SR v Trump et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-04782.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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