The 41-year’s lawyer hit back at accusations that her skincare line infringed on another brand SKKN+ – a trading name of Brooklyn small-business owner Cyndie Lunsford’s Beauty Concepts LLC – and believes is a effort to damage her “name and reputation”.
Attorney Michael Rhodes asserted that the legal action was “not what it seems”, while calling it a “shakedown effort” as he detailed attempts to engage with the plaintiff.
“Several times we reached out to Beauty Concepts, 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 skin-care line.
“We discovered that Beauty Concepts was doing business at one point without the legally required licenses. In the end, Beauty Concepts didn’t really engage with us beyond demanding a lot of money.”
Rhodes – who also represente the Kardashians in their legal battle with Rob Kardashian’s ex Blac Chyna – the family line was: “since we've done nothing wrong, we stood our ground.”
“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’” he said.
“That's not going to work, and we look forward to presenting our case in court.”
Lunsford’s Beauty Concepts argued that it is a “Black- and woman-owned business” that survived the pandemic and had opened a store “only to learn [Kim Kardashian] was launching her new brand with a strikingly similar name.”
In a cease-and-desist letter seen by gossip site TMZ, they said they had reached out to Kardashian and her team prior to launch, but were ignored.
In response, Kardashian’s team said: “We certainly appreciate and support small businesses, and our hat is off to Ms Lunsford. But the question at hand is one of trademark law and we’ve not done anything deserving of legal action by her.”