Duchess Meghan’s ‘American Riviera Orchard’ trademark application was rejected

duchess-meghan’s-‘american-riviera-orchard’-trademark-application-was-rejected

The British media has developed a zeal for mundane American licenses and trademarks in the past five years. There has been a lot of ink spilled over the name Archewell, over Meghan’s Archetypes podcast, and now American Riviera Orchard. ARO is Meghan’s lifestyle brand which will hopefully be launched later this year. Meghan already has an ARO Instagram and she already sent ARO jam-baskets to friends, but we’ve yet to see one ARO product for sale. Well, now the Telegraph reports that the US Patent and Trademark Office has refused the trademark for “American Riviera Orchard.”

The Duchess of Sussex’s application to trademark the name of her new commercial venture, American Riviera Orchard, has been refused. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) warned that businesses cannot trademark geographical locations, noting that American Riviera is a “common nickname” for Santa Barbara, California, where Prince Harry and Meghan live. It said the addition of the word Orchard “does not diminish the primarily geographical descriptiveness of the applied for mark”.

The USPTO warned that the descriptions of the Duchess’s products could fit into multiple trademark categories, stating that “cocktail napkins” could be paper or textiles, while “cooking utensils” could be manual or electric.

The 46-page document, filed on Saturday, included screenshots of another Santa Barbara company using the term “American Riviera” to sell a specific candle and several web pages demonstrating that Santa Barbara is widely known as the American Riviera. It said that because the location was the brand name, “a public association of the goods and services with the place is presumed”.

The Duchess was given three months to address the “non-final officer action” by the USPTO, or face having her application dropped. She must also pay an additional $700 (£532) to move forward with the request.

The Sussexes’ office considers such actions “routine and expected” when filing for trademarks. It expects to respond in due course. One option is to simply submit a disclaimer, confirming that no claim is made to the exclusive right to use “American Riviera”.

It comes after the Sussexes’ attempt to trademark Archetypes, the name of Meghan’s podcast, was rejected by the USPTO due to the “likelihood of confusion” with other brands.

[From The Telegraph]

It would be wild to see these journalistic standards applied to all celebrities who attempt to trademark various phrases or names. Taylor Swift has so many failed trademark applications, they could fill a book – remember when she tried to trademark “welcome to New York”?? Anyway, yeah, this is all boilerplate trademark law and Meghan will figure out some workaround.

Photos courtesy of Instar and social media.

Meghan Markle, royals
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