Marie Redding, Senior Editor, Senior Editor07.02.20
Seed Beauty's, co-founders John and Laura Nelson, which manufacture Kylie Cosmetics, have filed a lawsuit against Coty and Kylie Jenner’s King Kylie, on June 30 — seeking to prevent the misappropriation of trade secrets.
The new civil suit, filed June 30 in California’s superior court, claims that Kylie Cosmetics knowingly shared Seed Beauty’s trade secrets and Coty knowingly accepted them.
Seed Beauty also asked a judge last week for an injunction against Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty, blocking the company from revealing its trade secrets — and has won a temporary injunction.
Forbes reports that the court granted a temporary order, which lasts until August 21 — and it forbids KKW Beauty from sharing details with Coty related to the business relationship with Seed Beauty.
The injunction includes the terms of Seed Beauty’s agreements with its partners, information about license use, marketing obligations, product launch and distribution, revenue sharing, intellectual property ownership, specifications, ingredients, formulas, plans and more.
More About the Latest Civil Suit
Seed Beauty states that its cosmetic partners are all subject to “strict confidentiality and non-disclosure obligations.” And it adds, “ …any competitor who acquired such information woud be given an unfair competitive advantage.”
The complaint also states, “The details of our exclusive relationships with our beauty brand partners include highly sensitive, confidential, and trade secret information regarding these relationships…competitors could use this information to harm Seed Beauty’s existing relationships, unfairly compete against Seed Beauty for other exclusive relationships…”
It adds, “Seed Beauty’s competitive position would be greatly harmed if one of its competitors were to gain access to the Seed Beauty Trade Secrets — as this would allow the competing company to exploit many years’ worth of highly valuable knowledge and information.”
Seed Beauty describes itself in the Complaint as a leading brand incubator, stating that its unique business model, with vertical integration capabilities, enables it to “create, develop, manufacture, store, sell and distribute products for multiple direct-to-consumer brands all under one roof and bring products to market in record speed based entirely on consumer demand.”
The company also says that it employs hundreds of workers in Oxnard, California, to manufacture and ship products direct to consumers — and claims to be “one of the last beauty manufacturers left in the U.S."
Kylie Cosmetics currently has over 800 different product SKUs developed and owned by Seed Beauty.
The Fashion Law uploaded the complaint against KKW Beauty to Scribd. It was filed with the Van Nuys Courthouse East in Los Angeles, for a violation of the Uniform California Trade Secret Act and Declaration of Rights Under a Contract.
Photos above: KKW Beauty’s Nude Glosses, modeled on Kim Kardashian West, via KKWBeauty; Kylie Jenner via KylieCosmetics
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