A small enterprise proprietor is getting ready to face down the cosmetics large L’Oréal at a tribunal subsequent week over a trademark dispute she says has had a devastating affect on her.
Rebecca Dowdeswell, 49, from Nottinghamshire, has been locked in a three-year authorized battle with the French firm because it claimed her use of the title nkd for her enterprise would trigger “consumer confusion” with its personal vary of Naked magnificence merchandise.
Dowdeswell has been pressured to shut one in all her two nkd salons and has run up authorized charges of greater than £30,000 ($39,500) combating the £170 billion firm, which has instructed top-tier regulation agency Baker McKenzie.
Before the mental property workplace tribunal on Wednesday, she stated, “There’s never been any question or any evidence of any consumer confusion. From my perspective, we operate in very different sections of the beauty market. I only have an interest in waxing and hair removal.
“My three products I’ve launched under the nkd name are tied to hair removal aftercare, whereas they only use the Naked brand name against a handful of eyeshadow palettes and then a few other items of very specific makeup.
“And then the two brand names are spelt and pronounced differently, so I’ve always been pronounced ‘n-k-d’, they’ve always been ‘naked.’”
Dowdeswell launched her enterprise in 2009, a yr earlier than L’Oréal launched its first Naked product within the UK, she stated.
Her trademark expired in 2019, at which level she stated she had a six-month window to robotically renew it however forgot to due to Covid, for which she stated, “I fully hold my hands up.” When she bought spherical to renewing in 2022, L’Oréal objected.
“We had already by then coexisted for over 12 years,” stated Dowdeswell. “For a large company, £30,000 plus in legal fees is not a lot of money but to a very small business like mine it’s been really devastating. And the bigger impact has been the drain on my resources and the distraction that this has been to me, the drain on my time, my energy, my focus.”
She stated it was the necessity to give attention to the case that made her shut down her authentic — and largest — salon in Nottingham at the tip of 2023.
Dowdeswell did obtain some excellent news earlier this week when L’Oréal lowered the scope of its objection, which suggests her remaining salon, in Leicester, won’t want to be renamed and she will use the nkd model for some magnificence providers and merchandise.
But the 2 sides stay in dispute over different points and he or she stated the corporate’s late concession was in line with a “deliberate strategy to grind me down, to waste my legal expenses and to hope that this never gets as far as the hearing.
“I just feel really angry that nobody has held L’Oréal to account. And I really, really hope that they do get held to account on Wednesday.”
A L’Oréal spokesperson stated, “Since 2022 L’Oréal’s position has never changed or been updated. We have always been willing to work with Rebecca Dowdeswell to support her business aspirations whilst respecting our longstanding trademark rights.
“The proceedings are still ongoing and we remain wholly committed to resolving this matter in a mutually agreeable way.”
By Siddique Haroon
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