Lawyers for the Duchess, 43, have requested an extension in her attempt to trademark her commercial venture American Riviera Orchard.
It comes after her initial application to trademark the name was refused by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in September, after which she was given three months to address the issues or face having the application dropped.
She has now asked for a further three-month extension to address the filing issues for her brand, which will promote a domestic idyll through the sale of jams, nut butters and home goods.
If the next deadline is missed, the Duchess will have to start the application process again with the USPTO, which rejected the first try after noting businesses cannot trademark geographical locations.
Meghan Markle's American Riviera Orchard logo and crest. Photo / Instagram
It said American Riviera was a “common nickname” for Santa Barbara, the California city where Prince Harry and Meghan reside, and argued the addition of “Orchard” “does not diminish the primarily geographical descriptiveness of the applied-for mark”.
The Duchess had already soft-launched her brand with a slick video and a website created on March 14 that remains a holding page inviting supporters to join a waiting list to keep them updated about “products, availability and updates”.
Since then, Meghan has delivered jars of home-made strawberry jam to a group of high-profile and high-net-worth friends – including Kris Jenner and Chrissy Teigen – who in turn promoted the “delicious” product on their Instagram.
The initial American Riviera Orchard trademark application, lodged in March, included products such as cookbooks, tableware, jams and table place card holders specified to be “not of precious metal”.
The USPTO warned at the time that the descriptions of items such as household goods, linen and gardening equipment could fit into multiple trademark categories and needed to be clarified.
The Duchess was told American Riviera is directly linked to a geographical area and cannot be used directly in her brand name.
American Riviera Orchard strawberry jam. The Duchess was told American Riviera is directly linked to a geographical area and cannot be used directly in her brand name. Photo / Instagram
Officials stated “cocktail napkins” could be paper or textiles, while “cooking utensils” could be manual or electric, for example.
After the application was rejected, the Sussexes’ office confirmed they considered such actions “routine and expected” when filing for trademarks. It said it expects to respond in due course.
It marks the second time one of the Duchess’s trademark applications has been shot down.
In 2023, Meghan’s attempt to trademark Archetypes, the name of her podcast, was rejected by the USPTO because of the “likelihood of confusion” with other brands of the same name.
A spokesperson for Duchess of Sussex declined to comment.
