"As Hailey Rhode Bieber is being sued for trademark infringement in the US by fashion brand Rhode over her new skin care line, up-and-coming personal care brands in the UK might learn a lesson or two.
Hailey is not the first and she won’t be the last! Many new businesses have stalled over its choice of brand.
You might have thought Hailey was safe in choosing her middle name, but not so.
It does not provide a business with any defence in the UK, for example. With the brand being central to many luxury products, trademarks matter a lot.
That’s because trademarks afford brands a legal right to stop third parties from using confusingly similar marks.
They protect the investments businesses make in their brand, the reputation, and the cache they build.
In the case of eponymous brands it’s also a personal reputation and brand at stake.
Could Hailey have been advised better? It would seem so.
Before embarking on the choice of a new brand it is imperative to check whether there are any registered trademarks that are going to scupper your plans and worse still land you in court.
As trademarks are territorial, that can mean checking for registrations in different countries and territories.
Aspirational businesses will want to develop their brands as well, and so having their own trademark protection will be important.
Again, ensuring a clear landscape in which to protect their own brands by registration is the way to go if litigation is to be avoided.
Most brands do this by hiring the professional support of lawyers to conduct clearance searches and to advise on registrability and strategy.
Meanwhile, Hailey may protest that Rhode does not deal in cosmetics and so what’s the problem?
For sure, she has generated publicity for her venture, and maybe that can be turned to her advantage. But is it how she planned to start out? Probably not.
Sometimes brands can find ways to co-exist and settle disputes if the fields in which they operate are sufficiently different.
Lawyers can spend time negotiating and trying to find solutions. However, luxury brands can be fierce about protecting their uniqueness.
They do not like similar brands, and certainly not identical brands that clash, diluting the distinctive character of their trademarks, and particularly ones that come with celebrity.
Lots of time and money can be spent on these battlefields and so, sorry Hailey, you’ve got guts, but sometimes fame costs."
