Meghan Markle Gets Horrible Career News With Her Personal Brand

Meghan Markle is already facing some setbacks with her rebranded lifestyle brand As Ever. Formerly soft launched as American Riviera Orchard before the Duchess of Sussex, 43, announced the name change on Feb. 18, As Ever has been banned from selling clothes, according to court documents reviewed by the Daily Mail.

The brand was barred from selling clothing by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) due to name similarities with a cut-price Chinese clothing company ASEVER, which supplies high street stores like H&M. After Markle’s legal team applied for permission to sell aprons, as well as other clothing items, under the As Ever name in October 2022, the USPTO issued a 145-page “partial rejection” of her trademark application in July 2023. In the rejection, the USPTO sent “clothing category Class 25,” and stated that the “registration of the applied-for mark is refused because of a likelihood of confusion.”

“The marks are identical in sound and virtually identical in appearance and are thus confusingly similar for the purposes of determining likelihood of confusion,” the USPTO added in reference to ASEVER.

Markle ultimately got the trademark application approved when, six months later in January 2024, her lawyer filed a revised application which removed any mention of clothing. According to a trademark lawyer, Markle risks being sued if she sells clothing under the As Ever brand, instead sell products such as food products I and is set to will launch next month to coincide with Markle’s new Netflix show With Love Meghan.

Markle’s anticipated lifestyle brand has been plagued with issues. Originally soft launched on Instagram in March 2024, it was later revealed that the USPTO rejected Markle’s trademark application for American Riviera Orchard because businesses cannot trademark geographical locations. On Feb. 18, Markle announced that the brand would be launched as As Ever, explaining that the former name “limited me to things that were just manufactured and grown in this area.” As Ever, which she said she secured in 2022, essentially means ‘as it’s always been’, and if you’ve followed me since 2014 with The Tig, you know I’ve always loved cooking and crafting and gardening — this is what I do,” she said, referencing the lifestyle blog she ran as a passion project from 2014 to 2017.”

In addition to sharing a new with the Chinese brand ASEVER, As Ever also shares a name with the New York City-based clothing store As Ever. Addressing Markle’s brand in a statement shared to Instagram, the store’s owner clarified, “We are aware. We are not affiliated.”

Markle’s brand has also faced controversy over the logo, which bares similarities to the centuries’ old coat of arms of the Spanish town of Porreres. The town’s mayor, Xisca Mora, told El País, that the logo “is a total copy.” Although Mora said she has met with the legal service of the City Council to discuss steps to address the similarities, she acknowledged that “reporting plagiarism is complicated and expensive and a small town hall like ours is not in a position to fight against the English crown.”