Trademark Infringement Claims Against Kim Kardashian’s SKKN

In June 2022, the reality star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian launched skincare brands SKKN and SKKN BY KIM. Cyndie Lunsford, the founder of a black-owned, Brooklyn-based company Beauty Concepts, sent Kim Kardashian a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Kardashian’s brand stop using SKKN as it is infringing on Beauty Concepts’ mark SKKN+. 

Beauty Concepts is a small business that provides salon and skin care services including facials and body treatments under the name SKKN+. The company has been using its mark since 2017, but filed its USPTO trademark application on March 28, 2021. Kimsaprincess Inc., Kim Kardashian's company, filed its trademark SKKN BY KIM on March 30, 2021 to provide skincare products and a variety of merchandise and filed another trademark application for SKKN for use in skincare in July 2021. Kardashian’s company also filed various SKKN image-based trademarks. 

Shortly after Kardashian filed for the first trademark, Beauty Concept requested that the application be dropped, which Kardashian ignored. Beauty Concepts argued that the Kardashian brand is trying to bully a small business.  Erik M. Pelton, the filling attorney for Beauty Concept stated, "it is hard to believe that Kardashian's team either did not know about the prior use of SKKN+ or knew and adopted the SKKN brand name anyways to steamroll a small minority business."

Kim Kardashian's attorney Michael Rhodes has responded by applauding Cyndie Lunsford for being  a small business owner and following her dreams, but went to say that Kardashian’s team has reached out to Beauty Concepts “several times to try to find a sensible path to coexistence” but the Beauty Concepts has not agreed to the proposed terms. According to Rhodes, this case is “less about the law of trademarks and more about trying to leverage a settlement by threatening to harm Ms. Kardashian’s name and reputation.”

Trademark law often turns on which party has priority. If a trademark applicant has made a filing in a foreign country and within six months of the foreign filing date a company applies for a trademark application with the USPTO, the applicant can acquire what is referred to as “priority right” dating back to the filing date in the foreign country. Kardashian’s team says that she has a January 25, 2021 filing date for “SKKN” based on a foreign application Kimsaprincess, Inc. filed in Jamaica. 

The companies are still negotiating the issue, and several other players have entered the battlefield, including Lori Harvey, Steve Harvey’s daughter, who filed a USPTO trademark application in January of 2021 for SKN. The various parties may potentially sign a consent agreement to coexist on the USPTO principal register, come to some kind of financial settlement, or move forward with a drawn out trademark infringement suit. 

Despite using the mark since 2017, Beauty Concepts did not file a trademark registration application when it began using SKKN+ mark in the course of business. This is a common mistake small business owners make when they start doing business. For a new company, securing the trademark rights to the company’s branding is of the utmost importance in today’s marketplace. If you are starting a brand and need to secure your rights, contact the Antares Law Firm today. 

— Laila Ghauri, Esq., Trademark Lawyer, Antares Law Firm