June 28, 2022
Kim Kardashian says she’s the subject of a “shakedown effort” in response to the accusation she’s using her celebrity status to secure the rights to a skincare line after being sued for trademark infringement by a small business owned by a Black woman.
Lawyers for Kim Kardashian say the lawsuit “is not what it seems,” after a Black-owned company called Beauty Concept filed suit.
Last year Cyndie Lunsford, founder of a Black-owned company called Beauty Concept filed an opposition to block Kim Kardashian’s attempt to trademark the name “SKKN By Kim.”
She argued that the name was too similar to her brand SKKN +, which was already on the market. Lunsford has been operating the business out of a location in Brooklyn since 2018.
She has been “taking steps to expand into a bigger physical location” in New York.
In the docs, Beauty Concepts says it reached out to Kim’s team after she filed papers trying to lock up rights to “SKKN”.
Informing her it already held the trademark for “SKKN+” and asking Kim not to use similar branding.
The company claims Kim’s team ignored the request and pushed forward, releasing her line anyway.
The business was a one-person shop offering facials from a single Brooklyn location. The salon had no signage and was by appointment only.
To our knowledge, Beauty Concepts sold no products under the SKKN+ name.
He continues, “Beauty Concepts asked that we drop the SKKN name. Of course, we said no. Beauty Concepts then challenged Ms.
Kardashian’s trademark applications at the USPTO. Unsurprisingly, the USPTO rejected Beauty Concepts’ own SKKN+ mark saying that “skkn” just means “skin.”
Undaunted, Beauty Concepts then tried to make its business seem more than it was – it leased a new storefront, changed its website, etc.”
Rhodes says Kim’s team tried to work with Beauty Concepts to figure something out, and says he “pointed out running a small esthetician business in Brooklyn does not give it the right to shut down a global skincare line.”
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