Using one’s own name as a brand name has its own perks. Consumers might relate more to a brand when they can put a designer’s face behind the brand name. A personal name will do that. However, when it comes to a business strategy, using a personal name as a brand name may create numerous legal issues down the road. Many times, designers sell their brands and create another. When a brand name is a personal name, it alerts both the seller (designer) and the buyer. The buyer would want to make sure that the seller is not going to use the same or similar name for a new brand. After-all, the buyer is purchasing the brand for its name and fame. Any confusion created by a different brand with a similar name would certainly hurt the buyer. The seller would want to keep the option for using his or her personal name with a new brand because it is his or her own name. Designers would want the consumers to know who designed the clothes they are wearing.
Naturally, it has been shown difficult for designers to disassociate their personal names with their new brands, all the while trying to disassociate themselves with the old brand they created which were still known by their personal names. For example, the late Kate Spade changed her legal name after selling the Kate Spade brand, so she could disassociate herself with the Kate Spade brand and focus on her new brand, Frances Valentine.
There are two competing trademark interests here: protecting the buyer and consumer from confusion, and, recognizing one’s right to use his or her personal name as an indicator of origin. Courts tend to balance these interests when deciding who gets to use which name, while reluctant to outright prohibit a person from using his or her own name. See JA Apparel Corp. v. Joseph Abboud, 682 F. Supp. 2d 294 (S.D.N.Y. 2010).
Law in Style. 