Kylie Jenner sued over ‘Born to Sparkle’ range
Kylie Jenner’s glitter-based cosmetics are at the centre of a trademark lawsuit filed yesterday at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Alabama-based Sheree Cosmetics filed the complaint over its Born to Sparkle range. It includes a glitter palette, which features 15 shades of pressed glitter presented in a white box with the words ‘Born to Sparkle’ written in gold letters.
The packaging is “inherently distinctive”, Sheree said.
Sheree owns US word mark ‘Born to Sparkle’ (88,099,083), registered in August in international class 3 for cosmetics. Sheree also has a pending application for ‘Born to be Iconic’, creating a family of ‘Born to’ marks, the suit said.
It added that ‘Born to Sparkle’ has a high degree of distinctiveness and is “an extremely valuable asset”.
Jenner—through her companies Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie Jenner, Seed Beauty, and King Kylie Holdings—has been using the ‘Born to Sparkle’ mark, confusing consumers into believing that they are buying Sheree’s genuine Born to Sparkle-branded cosmetics, according to the complaint.
Sheree said that Jenner has created her own Born to Sparkle product line, which includes eyeshadows, lip liners, and more.
The products are allegedly available in similar colours to Sheree’s cosmetics and, like Sheree’s products, are sold in packing which features “inspirational” quotes.Sheree listed trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, and unfair competition among its claims.
The cosmetics company asked the court to prevent Jenner and her businesses from using either the ‘Born to Sparkle’ or ‘Born to be Iconic’ marks in connection with any goods, and from selling any product that infringes Sheree’s trade dress.
Sheree also requested triple damages and attorneys’ fees, in addition to pre-judgment interest.
The Fashion Law blog, which reported on the case, questioned the validity of Sheree’s argument, saying that Jenner’s use of the ‘Born to Sparkle’ slogan “might more realistically be an example of descriptive fair use”.
Jenner, sister of reality TV star Kim Kardashian, is no stranger to IP disputes.
In one example, last year, UK-based artist Sara Pope accused Jenner of infringing the copyright of a photograph of neon lips. Pope claimed that the image had been copied to promote Jenner’s reality TV show and had been featured in a thirty-second promotional video.
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