Forbes.com:
When I wrote a Forbes profile on Sara Blakely last year, I included a long list of competitors that have flooded the market since she launched her Spanx shapewear brand in 2000. On that list were Yummie Tummie and Skweez Couture, which have more in common than playful misspellings: both were founded by cast members of popular reality show The Real Housewives Of New York.RELATED: Real Housewives of New York: Casting Shakeup?
During our time together, Blakely was gracious enough not to say much about these and other upstarts that have edged their way into Spanx’s space in the past few years. She did tell me, however, that she and her legal team have always been unrelenting in their pursuit of patent or trademark copycats.
Blakely wrote the first Spanx patent herself 13 years ago, unable to shell out $3,000 for a lawyer. Now that Spanx is a $1 billion business, Blakely — the youngest self-made woman on Forbes’ rich lists — invests in the best legal counsel available to protect her shapewear brand from infringements.
It must come as something of a surprise, then, that Yummie Tummie founder and Real Housewives star Heather Thomson has come out swinging against Blakely rather than the other way around, telling trade title Women’s Wear Daily that she hopes the billionaire Spanx mogul is “ready for war.”
“I will not lie down,” said Thomson, who started Yummie Tummie in 2008 and started filming the Bravo network’s hit franchise three years later.
Thomson claims three of Spanx’s slimming tank tops are Yummie Tummie knock-offs. According to a complaint filed by lawyers for Spanx this month in a Georgia court, Thomson asked Spanx to cease and desist production of these camisoles in January. In February, Spanx responded with a list of differences between their tanks and Yummie Tummie’s products.
Since then, Thomson’s lawyers haven’t dropped the issue, resulting in this latest complaint from Spanx. Blakely’s shapewear giant has asked a judge to step in and decide whether they’ve infringed on any patents.
They’re also asking for Thomson’s Yummie Tummie to pay all their costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees should the judge decide in their favor.
Spanx didn’t immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment, but issued a statement saying: “Spanx was making shaping camisoles long before Yummie Tummie. We have no further comment. The papers filed in court provide our position at this time.”
A spokesperson for Yummie Tummie said Thomson is unavailable as she’s in Florida, Blakely’s old stomping ground, filming segments for the Home Shopping Network. She does, however, intend to pursue her patent infringement claims.
Update: Thomson has written an open letter to Blakely, dated March 14 and displayed on the Yummie website. “We will not allow Spanx to bully us,” she writes. “Sara, I truly expected more of you as a fellow entrepreneur.”
World’s Youngest Self Made Women Billionaire.Sara Blakely: When i was 27 working for a company selling fax machines door-to-door, and then one day she had her ‘a-ha’ moment. She was going to a party and needed footless pantyhose to go with her outfit, so she cut the ‘feet’ off her pantyhose and bam: problem solved. Somewhere in there, she’d been praying to ‘the universe’ to give her an idea that will help her make millions and touch people’s lives.
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