Meghan Markle may hope that people will remain so focused on the release of her Netflix lifestyle show — or the upcoming debut of her new podcast about being a “female founder” — that they won’t pay attention to the latest indication that she keeps “getting it wrong” when it comes to succeeding as “a female founder.”
Apparently, Meghan has flubbed it again when it comes to securing a trademark for her much-ballyhooed lifestyle company, according to a new report by Daily Mail columnist Richard Eden.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has just returned paperwork the Montecito-based Duchess of Sussex submitted in a bid to secure a trademark for “As Ever.” That’s the new name she selected for her proposed brand at the 11th hour, after she was forced to ditch the name “American Riviera Orchard” for her jams and other food and lifestyle products.
Meghan had to give up on the name “American Riviera Orchard” after a series of trademark issues and lack of “due diligence,” as Brown, the royal author and former Vanity Fair editor, recently said. Among other things, her trademark application for “American Riviera Orchard” was challenged by Harry & David, the Oregon-based 90-year-old gift basket company that’s famous for its brand of Royal Riviera premium pears.
Shortly before Meghan was due to premiere her Netflix series, “With Love, Meghan,” earlier this month, she announced that she would instead call her brand “As Ever.” The former TV actor also confirmed that she was partnering with Netflix to sell her luxury home products, possibly in Netflix stores that are due to open this year in major shopping malls in Dallas and outside Philadelphia.
But Eden reported that the application for “As Ever” was returned with the request that she clarify “what she means” about certain items she plans to sell under that name — curiously, including “spoons serving jams and fruit preserves.” The trademark office also said she must list all goods and services “by their international class number” — a step that’s apparently necessary in a trademark application.
But, above all else, Meghan must sign her application, without which it will not be “properly verified,” Eden reported.
The columnist, who is known for being a critic of Meghan and of her husband, Prince Harry, speculated that the duchess got tripped up again by the trademark office because she had been distracted by the debut of her lifestyle show. Eden noted that Meghan made the same mistake — failing to sign the application — when she tried to trademark “The Tig,” the name of her old lifestyle blog, as well as “Archetypes,” the name she chose for her short-lived Spotify podcast.
Such paperwork mistakes have led Meghan’s critics to scoff at the idea of her latest podcast effort. “Confessions of a Female Founder,” which debuts April 8. They questioned whether she’s yet in the position to be considered any kind of business expert.
As Meghan announced on Instagram, the show will consist of her having “candid conversations with amazing women who have turned dreams into realities, and scaled small ideas into massively successful businesses.” Meghan said these women will share their “tips, tricks (and tumbles)” and let her pick their brains as she builds her own business. It would seem that Meghan could use some advice from successful entrepreneurs, at least when it comes to dealing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
But Tina Brown also thinks she needs to learn the value of patience.
“The trouble with Meghan is, she’s just too damn impatient,” Brown wrote on her Fresh Hell Substack. “Who announces a new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, and hounds celebrity friends to talk up her strawberry jam on social media, without doing due diligence on the availability of the trademark?”
Brown also questioned Meghan’s attempt, with her Netflix show, to transform herself into a globally renowned lifestyle guru, on the level of Martha Stewart or Gwyneth Paltrow.
“With her unerring instinct for getting it wrong, Meghan has come out with a show about fake perfection just when the zeitgeist has turned raucously against it,” Brown said. “Trump’s America is a foulmouthed and disheveled cultural place where podcasters in sweaty T-shirts, crotch-rot jeans, and headphones achieve world domination on YouTube.”
Brown pointed out that Stewart, as early as 2015, recognized that the tide “was turning against over-produced flawlessness.” On the other hand, Meghan, “has never figured out a convincing persona,” Brown said. “Masquerading as an influencer, she’s the ultimate follower, which inevitably means she is behind the curve.”