Salon owner ‘exhausted’ by legal battle with L’Oréal

A salon owner says she has been left exhausted by a long-running legal battle with global cosmetics giant L’Oréal.

The French firm is opposing Rebecca Dowdeswell’s attempt to renew the trademark on the name of her business – nkd – in Leicester city centre.

L’Oréal has its own trademark on a series of beauty products called NAKED and has told the 48-year-old her use of the name nkd would cause “consumer confusion”.

Ms Dowdeswell said she had spent more than £30,000 contesting L’Oréal’s opposition to her trademark application.

The mother of two, from Radcliffe-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, said the pressure caused by the dispute had been a factor in her downsizing her business and closing a salon she previously ran in Nottingham.

L’Oréal told the BBC it had made Ms Dowdeswell an offer “that supports her business aspirations”.

However she disputed that, claiming the firm had continued to oppose her trademark application to register nkd as a trademark for toiletries.

Mrs Dowdeswell registered nkd as a trademark when she launched her business in 2009, but said her problems began when that expired 10 years later.

She said she had a six-month window to renew it but forgot to.

“I should have renewed it straight away. I didn’t. That was a big mistake,” she said.

“That six-month window ran into the start of Covid and chaos ensued for all businesses – including beauty salons -and I missed the expiry.

“When I came to re-register the trademark, I was essentially starting from scratch, not renewing an existing one.

“L’Oréal objected on the basis they owned the Urban Decay make-up brand which has a range of eye shadow palettes called Naked.

“I was very surprised because we have never been Naked. We’re spelled NKD, we are pronounced N, K, D.”

Ms Dowdeswell added: “There has never been any evidence of consumer confusion. In 15 years of trading, no-one has ever said ‘are you the same brand as Naked by Urban Decay?’

“I’ve spent two years negotiating with them trying to come to a co-existence agreement where they can carry on trading as Naked with their make-up and we can carry on as nkd in our very tight sphere of waxing and hair removal.

“This is David vs Goliath and frankly it has been horrible, exhausting and really stressful.

“I’ve now racked up over £30,000 plus VAT in legal costs defending myself. I don’t know whether it was the right thing to do.

“What I do know is that I could not just have walked away from my brand when L’Oréal disputed it. I’d spent 13 years of my life pouring everything building up this brand.”

A spokesperson for L’Oréal said: “We are wholly committed to resolving any misunderstanding there might have been with Rebecca Dowdeswell.

“From the beginning of our exchanges with her lawyers in 2022, we have communicated an offer that supports her business aspirations whilst respecting our longstanding trademark rights.

“We look forward to resolving this matter in a mutually agreeable way.”

If the matter is not resolved, Ms Dowdeswell said it would be decided by a judgement from the government’s Intellectual Property Office.

Ms Dowdeswell said she believed that would happen in 2025.

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