World Trademark Review reports
- Duke and Duchess of Sussex take action against Filipino small business owner
- Move follows trademark related to the royal couple’s Archewell brand launch
- Legal expert tells WTR that third-party Archewell trademarks were “inevitable”
An entity representing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is pursuing legal action against a small business owner in the Philippines, WTR can reveal. The trademark dispute related to the Archewell brand is set to be a fiery one, with the opponent publicly telling the royal couple that ‘the Philippines is not a British colony so English laws don’t work here’.
Last year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sought legal protection for their ‘Sussex Royal’ brand, but faced a number of hurdles. What began as a young couple launching a charitable foundation turned into a long-running saga playing out under the public eye, involving unauthorised trademark applications, threatened oppositions and an intervention from the Queen. Eventually, the couple confirmed that their non-profit organisation would not use the ‘Sussex Royal’ name and they withdrew their trademark applications. Shortly thereafter, they announced a new brand name: Archewell.
What followed was a spate of trademark filings across the world by the couple’s legal entity Cobblestone Lane LLC in Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, as well as an international submission (designating China, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Russia). Due to the couple’s global fame (highlighted this week with their upcoming Oprah interview), there were also a number of third-party attempts to obtain registered trademark protection for the Archewell name. For example, there was one filing in Germany, which was eventually withdrawn by the applicant.
However, it is in the Philippines where most third-party Archewell-related trademark activity has occurred. The most notable, perhaps, was filed by Iloilo resident Gina Agnes Sarabia in July 2020 for the term ARCHEWELL covering jewellery in Class 14. That application reached registration at the IP Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) in December 2020 and is already in use by the applicant’s company, Sarabia Jewelry, which has launched an Archewell range of luxury products.
