Kim Kardashian’s “SKNN by Kim” Receives Trademark Infringement Notice

Oops, she did it again. Kim K is in the trademark news for registering a trademark similar to a trademark owned by a black-owned beauty business.

Previous Kim K video

Early July, Kim Kardashian announced her cosmetic brand’s KKW beauty website would shut down on August 1st for a complete overhaul and rebrand. According to WWD, the rebrand has nothing to do with her divorce but everything to do with a $200 million licensing deal with Coty Inc. The deal will allow Kim K to expand her cosmetic empire to skincare, haircare, nail care, and personal care products. Come through intellectual property. While we are all about leveraging your intangible assets to increase your company’s revenue and value, last week we learned the rebrand possibly infringes on the trademark of black-owned skincare business, Beauty Concept, LLC.

The Legal Tea

Beauty Concept, LLC provides skincare salon services under the trademark SKNN + and has done so since August 1st, 2018. The company filed for federal trademark registration on March 28th, 2021.

Although Kim K announced her rebrand in July, her team filed for federal trademark registration for two applications on March 30th for SKKN by Kim. One application is for retail store services featuring skin, cosmetics, hair, nail, and beauty products, tools and accessories, etc. The second application is for beauty salon services, skin care services, nail salon services, hair salon services, health and beauty spa services, namely, cosmetic face and body care.

The challenges with SKKN by Kim are:

• it uses the dominant portion of the SKKN + trademark

• it identifies not only related services but the same skincare salon service as SKKN +

• SKKN + is actually using the trademark in commerce which gives it priority over the intent to use trademark application which was filed after the use began

Before you pull out the pitchforks, let’s discuss how something like this can happen. Skipping the trademark clearance search is the primary way filing a similar trademark can happen. A trademark clearance search is intended to reveal potential conflicting or saturated marks before you file your application. In this case, it was possible for a trademark clearance search using the USPTO’s TESS was done by KK’s legal team however, because the SKKN + trademark was filed a mere two days before their applications, it is likely the SKKN + application hadn’t hit the system yet.

It happens.

Once you submit your application, it can take a few days or sometimes longer before it shows up publicly. This is why keeping your filing receipt is critical. Delayed processing is also why searching for common law uses is an integral part of the trademark clearance search. There are 100s of 1000s of businesses using unregistered trademarks. Their unregistered status doesn’t negate their trademark or their ability to challenge your trademark application later in the process.

There was so much to unpack that we had to break other points down in our podcast, Own Your Genius.