Kim Kardashian‘s attorney is clapping back at esthetician Cydnie Lunsford, who is suing the SKKN founder for alleged trademark infringement; according to attorney Michael Rhodes, “this lawsuit is not what it seems.”
Last Wednesday, June 29, Rhodes denied that the 41-year-old reality star has done anything wrong in a statement to Us Weekly. “SKKN BY KIM is a brand that follows in the footsteps of Ms. Kardashian’s successful KKW line of products,” he said. “Building on independent research and development, her company filed a trademark application for SKKN BY KIM to protect the new branded products. This prompted the current shakedown effort.”
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Rhodes went on to tell the outlet that he and Kardashian’s team received a letter from Lundsford’s esthetician studio, Beauty Concepts, last year. “We applaud Ms. Lunsford for being a small business owner and following her dreams. But that doesn’t give her the right to wrongfully claim that we’ve done something wrong,” he insisted, explaining that Beauty Concepts claimed to own rights to the SKKN logo.
Lunsford’s lawsuit claims that Beauty Concepts has “conducted business continuously under the SKKN+ brand in Washington, DC and/or New York, New York, since at least August 2018” and says they have been using the domain www.skknplus.com for their website since 2018 as well. However, Rhodes said that at the time they received the first letter, “the salon had no signage and was by appointment only. To our knowledge, Beauty Concepts sold no products under the SKKN+ name.”
In their initial letter, Beauty Concepts asked SKKN to change their name. When the brand failed to meet those demands, Lundsford’s team took it up with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). “Unsurprisingly, the USPTO rejected Beauty Concepts’ own SKKN+ mark saying that ‘skkn’ just means ‘skin,'” Rhodes went on. Then, he says Beauty Concepts attempted to make more of a name for themselves with stronger branding in order to put up a better fight. They leased a new storefront, shaped up their website, and more.
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Rhodes told Us Weekly the SKKN team reached out to Beauty Concepts multiple times, “trying to find a sensible path to coexistence. We pointed out that running a small esthetician business in Brooklyn does not give it the right to shut down a global skincare line,” he said. But it seems Beauty Concepts had no interested in coming to a realistic conclusion. As Rhodes stated, they “didn’t really engage with us beyond demanding a lot of money.”
Kardashian and her team are standing their ground, though. “We think the 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,” Rhodes observed. “That’s not going to work and we look forward to presenting our case in court.” You tell ’em!
So, what do you think? Is this a small business trying to make a quick buck? Or is there some serious copyright infringement going on? Frankly, we’re just excited to see Kim back in the beauty game—but maybe we’re a little biased.
