Trademark risk - why changing one letter will not protect your brand?

What’s in a letter?

Why one small change can spell big trouble for your brand

A missing vowel, a swapped first letter and two very different businesses have landed in legal disputes over names that sound remarkably familiar.

For businesses building a reputation around a distinctive name, recent cases involving a florist linked to Victoria Beckham and a dog magazine taking on internationally renowned publication Vogue show how changing a letter does not necessarily make a brand your own.

In the UK, celebrity florist FLOWERBX - whose clients have included Victoria Beckham - has won a trademark infringement case against rival Flowers Box London, also known as FLOWERSBOX. The court ruled that the names sounded and looked sufficiently similar that it could create confusion, despite the differences in spelling.

The judge also found that Flowers Box had taken unfair advantage of the reputation built by Flowerbx through its marketing and other commercial activity.

The same issue is playing out across the Atlantic, in an ongoing dispute where independent US publication Dogue is being sued by Condé Nast, the owner of fashion bible Vogue, over its name and branding for a magazine about dogs. Lawyers for Condé Nast are arguing that the branding was intended to confuse customers and could damage Vogue's reputation.

The twist is that Dogue began in 2019, and some years later Vogue launched its own online content called ‘Dogue’, featuring dogs and celebrities. Dogue's founder has responded with counterclaims, alleging that Condé Nast copied her concept.

For businesses, the message is simple: originality is worth protecting, and it is also worth checking that your great new idea is genuinely yours before you build a business around it.

Registration may provide stronger protection: trademarks can protect names, logos and other distinctive signs, provided they meet the relevant requirements. Other intellectual property rights may also be relevant depending on what a business is creating.

Where a similar name already exists, changing one letter is not necessarily enough, if customers could reasonably misread, mistype or mishear the two names, as with the Flowerbx case.

Flowerbx Ltd v Flowers Box London Ltd [2026] EWHC 2233 (IPEC)

This article was first produced as part of our LawNet membership.

This is not legal advice; it is intended to provide information of general interest about current legal issues.

For more information or advice, please get in touch with Doug Locke, Partner in our Intellectual Property team.