The British comedian formerly known as Joe Lycett has legally changed his name to Hugo Boss, as a revenge stunt against the luxury brand of the same name.
Lycett, now Hugo Boss, acted after finding out that the fashion brand targets small companies and charities with trademark claims if they have the word ‘boss’ in their name.
The announcement was made on Twitter on Sunday, when the comedian wrote: “So Hugo Boss (who turnover approx $2.7bn a year) have sent cease and desist letters to a number of small businesses & charities who use the word ‘BOSS’ or similar, including a small brewery in Swansea, costing them thousands in legal fees and rebranding.
“It’s clear that Hugo Boss HATES people using their name. Unfortunately for them this week I legally changed my name by deed poll and I am now officially known as Hugo Boss. All future statements from me are not from Joe Lycett but Hugo Boss. Enjoy.”
Among the victims of the fashion company is a craft brewery from Swansea, Boss Brewing, whose owner described Lycett’s action as “brilliant from a David and Goliath point of view”, that draws attention to how “silly” the situation is, as no one is going to confuse beer as a Hugo Boss product. The small company was left with over £10,000 of legal fees in 2019 after Hugo Boss sent it a cease and desist letter when the brewer tried to trademark its brand.
After initially staying silent, a spokesman of the fashion brand responded to the claims by saying, “As he will know, as a ‘well-known’ trademark (as opposed to a ‘regular’ trademark) Hugo Boss enjoys increased protection not only against trademarks for similar goods, but also for dissimilar goods across all product categories for our brands and trademarks Boss and Boss Black and their associated visual appearance.”
He continued by clarifying that the fashion brand approached the brewery “to prevent potential misunderstanding” regarding the name of two of their beers. “Both parties worked constructively to find a solution”, which led to Boss Brewing keeping its name, but changing slightly the name of said beers.
He also added that, “as an open-minded company we would like to clarify that we do not oppose the free use of language in any way and we accept the generic term ‘boss’ and its various and frequent uses in different languages.”
However, according to UK-based iNews, in 2018 the fashion brand took legal action against charity DarkGirlBoss because the name was too similar to their own. The legal letter stated that their customers might confuse the charity, which offers counselling, mentors, books and t-shirts to disadvantaged women, as affiliated with their company.