Small UK Business Owner to Face L’Oréal at Tribunal Over Trademark Dispute

A small business owner is preparing to face down the cosmetics giant L’Oréal at a tribunal next week over a trademark dispute she says has had a devastating impact on her.

Rebecca Dowdeswell, 49, from Nottinghamshire, has been locked in a three-year legal battle with the French company since it claimed her use of the name nkd for her business would cause “consumer confusion” with its own range of Naked beauty products.

Dowdeswell has been forced to close one of her two nkd salons and has run up legal fees of more than £30,000 ($39,500) fighting the £170 billion company, which has instructed top-tier law firm Baker McKenzie.

Before the intellectual property office tribunal on Wednesday, she said, “There’s never been any question or any evidence of any consumer confusion. From my perspective, we operate in very different sections of the beauty market. I only have an interest in waxing and hair removal.

“My three products I’ve launched under the nkd name are tied to hair removal aftercare, whereas they only use the Naked brand name against a handful of eyeshadow palettes and then a few other items of very specific makeup.

“And then the two brand names are spelt and pronounced differently, so I’ve always been pronounced ‘n-k-d’, they’ve always been ‘naked.’”

Dowdeswell launched her business in 2009, a year before L’Oréal launched its first Naked product in the UK, she said.

Her trademark expired in 2019, at which point she said she had a six-month window to automatically renew it but forgot to because of Covid, for which she said, “I fully hold my hands up.” When she got round to renewing in 2022, L’Oréal objected.

“We had already by then coexisted for over 12 years,” said Dowdeswell. “For a large company, £30,000 plus in legal fees is not a lot of money but to a very small business like mine it’s been really devastating. And the bigger impact has been the drain on my resources and the distraction that this has been to me, the drain on my time, my energy, my focus.”

She said it was the need to focus on the case that made her shut down her original — and biggest — salon in Nottingham at the end of 2023.

Dowdeswell did receive some good news earlier this week when L’Oréal reduced the scope of its objection, which means her remaining salon, in Leicester, will not need to be renamed and she can use the nkd brand for some beauty services and products.

But the two sides remain in dispute over other issues and she said the company’s late concession was in keeping with a “deliberate strategy to grind me down, to waste my legal expenses and to hope that this never gets as far as the hearing.

“I just feel really angry that nobody has held L’Oréal to account. And I really, really hope that they do get held to account on Wednesday.”

A L’Oréal spokesperson said, “Since 2022 L’Oréal’s position has never changed or been updated. We have always been willing to work with Rebecca Dowdeswell to support her business aspirations whilst respecting our longstanding trademark rights.

“The proceedings are still ongoing and we remain wholly committed to resolving this matter in a mutually agreeable way.”

By Haroon Siddique

Learn more:

L’Oréal to Acquire Kering Beauty Portfolio for $4.6 Billion

The companies announced on Sunday that L’Oréal will acquire Kering’s beauty brands and licenses for its fashion house names, including Gucci.