VICTORIA Beckham has lost a trademark war against a beauty brand — because she is not famous enough in Norway.
Posh Spice argued that Norwegian firm Vendela Beauty’s VB logo would be confused with her global brand.
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Victoria Beckham has lost a trademark war against a beauty brand — because she is not famous enough in NorwayCredit: GettyVendela Kirsebom had filed a trademark application in September 2021 for her beauty brandCredit: Getty
She claimed both the designs were dominated by the letters VB, the layout was almost identical, and both businesses sell similar products.
The fashion designer, 51, provided Instagram followers, international magazine features and sales figures to prove she had a big presence in the country.
But Norway’s patent body decided that there was not enough evidence her brand was well-known enough in the Nordic state — and ruled they were different enough to avoid confusion.
Ex-swimwear model Vendela Kirsebom had filed a trademark application in September 2021 for her beauty brand, which sells a range of skincare, makeup, hair care and fragrance products.
It was registered in December 2023, before Victoria formally opposed it.
But the Norwegian Industrial Property Office ruled against her.
Senior legal adviser Tord Hestenes wrote in the judgment that while Victoria is well known in the industry, it “does not mean that her initials or the combined mark can be considered well-known for this reason alone”.
He said her evidence had limited value because her follower count did not actually show how many were in Norway.
He added that it had not been successfully proved how many Norwegians read the international magazines cited, and the sales figures provided covered the entire Nordic region — not just Norway.
Mr Hestenes ruled there was “no risk of confusion” over the brands.
He added: “Documentation in the case does not provide grounds for assuming that the opponent’s mark will be linked to the name Victoria Beckham.”
Victoria’s representatives have been approached for comment on the verdict.
Vendela’s logo on the left and Victoria’s logo on the right
AN ICONIC Norwegian-style house featured in a TV show watched by millions – but do you recognise it?
Nestled in the picture postcard landscape of the Wye Valley in Hertfordshire, the wooden home appeared in a hit Netflix series.
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This iconic Norwegian house featured in a hit TV show on NetflixCredit: Knight Frank
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It can be found nestled on the slopes of the Wye Valley in HertfordshireCredit: Not known, clear with picture desk
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The property featured in high school comedy drama Sex Education
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It features prominently throughout the popular series
The Edwardian building features in Netflix’s high school comedy drama, Sex Education, which first aired in 2019.
It features prominently throughout the series and fans may have recognised it as the home of high schooler Otis Milburn and his mum Jean, played by Gillian Anderson.
The Scandinavian inspired property has room for 10 people and is located near the Forest of Dean with cycle trails and a river nearby for canoeing and fishing.
Fans will recognise certain rooms in the house from many of the scenes between Otis and Jean.
Built in 1912, it was initially used as a fishing lodge and also featured in Extraordinary Escapes on Channel 4.
With five bedrooms over three floors, the property has breathtaking panoramic views of the valley.
And the main bedroom can be found at the top of the house, spanning the entire floor.
As you approach the Norwegian-inspired home, you are immediately struck by it’s distinctive exterior.
It’s comprised of red wooden slats and white detailing amidst the expansive greenery on the slopes overlooking the River Wye.
It has a winding drive lined with trees leading up to a garage.
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Viewers had the chance to own it in 2023 where it hit the market for an eye-watering £1.5 million.
It was renovated in 2002 that saw the conservatory dining room extended and a bespoke painted wood kitchen installed alongside a contemporary bathroom and shower rooms.
It was done in such a way that it blends effortlessly into the rest of the house.
Move outside and you’ll notice it’s beautiful gardens where there are steps that lead straight down to the river.
It also has a decked balcony where a Swedish hot back and stone pizza oven can be used as you take in the spectacular views.
The property’s 4.5 acres of land includes two greenhouses, a stone and tile outbuilding and an orchard.
It’s currently a private residence but fans used to be able to rent the whole house for £75 per person a night – but you can still admire its beauty from afar.
We land on a white sand beach under jagged black mountains. A sea eagle, surprised to see humans, flaps away over the only house with a roof on it – the rest are in ruins. “Hundreds of people used to live here,” says Vidar. “In the days when you had to sail or row, it was important to be near the fishing grounds. Now there’s just one summer cabin.”
Jumping out of the boat, we walk along the beach. My daughter, Maddy, points out some animal tracks. “The fresh marks are wild reindeer,” says Vidar. “The older ones could be moose – they come along here too.”
Beyond the end of the beach are the small fields that the inhabitants once cultivated, now covered in wild flowers. In winter this would be an inhospitable place, but at the height of summer the flora and fauna are booming under a sun that never goes down. The people hunted a special type of cod, Vidar explains, the skrei, which migrates west from the Barents Sea to breed off Arctic islands such as this one, Skogsøya. This is the extreme edge of north-west Europe, isolated from the rest of Norway by a maze of twisting fjords and snow-capped inner islands. Head west from this beach and the first landfall is Greenland.
“When did everyone leave?” I ask, watching an otter swimming around the cove and diving into the kelp beds.
“It started with the terrible Arctic storm of 1893 that killed many people. Then the marine diesel engine came and they didn’t need to live out here. By 1952, they were all gone.”
The spectacular nine-mile Dronningruta hike is a major draw for visitors. Photograph: Christian Roth Christensen
Rudolf Diesel probably never meant to redefine the meaning of “remote”, but that’s what his eponymous engine did. Patented in that same year of 1893, his invention would inadvertently redraw the map of this coast. Places once inaccessible up long fjords could now prosper as sheltered havens, but exposed outer-island fishing villages, inhabited only for their accessibility to sailing and rowing boats, were left to return to wilderness.
Jumping back on the boat, we head northwards, weaving between rocky islets and rafts of puffins. Three sea eagles watch us warily. Then Maddy spots a group of black fins slicing towards us through the waves. Vidar cuts the engine. “You’re in luck,” he grins. Seconds later four orcas come rolling past, blowholes blasting – three adults and one calf, heading for a local seal colony. “Mostly they eat herring,” says Vidar. “But some do know how to catch seals.”
After a few precious minutes watching the orcas, we head back to Vidar’s base, the village of Nyksund, carving a tight bend through a narrow gap formed by a pair of craggy islands, then into the little harbour. The two sides of this tranquil haven are lined with clapboard houses, fish warehouses and rusting cranes. There are clamouring kittiwakes nesting on every available ledge; the wharves and decking have gaps; much of the paint is peeling. But this is a pretty spot, not gentrified – not yet. Nyksund is another abandoned fishing village, but with a difference. The people are coming back.
On the quayside, I meet Dan and Johanna, who will be our guides. They came here in the 1990s, finding only one aged resident remaining. The rest had left in the 1970s, tired of the awkward tiny harbour and crunching winter storms, but now the population is back up to more than 20.
A close encounter with orcas off the island of Skogsøya. Photograph: Kevin Rushby
That afternoon, we set out with Johanna on the Dronningruta (the Queen’s Route), a spectacular nine-mile (15km) hike that is Nyksund’s biggest attraction. The route leads up on to a ridge where I begin to see why this path is a favourite of Norway’s Queen Sonja. First, there are views south to the soaring mountains of Skogsøya, then a vast panorama of snow-capped peaks and islands opens up to the north. The lower slopes are emerald green all the way down to the azure sea. Under our feet is a thick carpet of leaves and flowers. On the windswept summits, juniper bushes grow horizontally, sheltering behind 5cm-tall crowberry bushes.
Finally we descend into the fishing port of Stø, taking a detour to see the church at Langenes, a rustic wooden masterpiece, parts of which date back to the 16th century. On the wall, in Gothic script, is the Lord’s Prayer in Old Danish, a reminder that Norway was under the control of Copenhagen for many centuries, achieving full independence only in 1905, after being ceded to Sweden in 1814.
We skip the return leg along the coast, opting for the boat service that shuttles us back to Nyksund. There is no second sighting of orca, but the ride is still an exciting rollercoaster through the swell, with an audience of seals and black guillemots. Back in Nyksund, we drink a beer in the cosy Holmvik Brygge bar, then eat a plate of local seafood in the Ekspedisjonen restaurant. Specialities include tørrfisk (skrei cod, air-dried then soaked in running freshwater for a week before cooking), black halibut and torsketunger, tempura-style cod’s tongue.
The rocky islets are populated by puffins among other sea birds. Photograph: Hans Petter Sorensen
Dan and Johanna are wondering what kind of future their village might have. “It needs some development,” says Dan. “But what? There were plans for a five-star hotel, but that fell through. Whatever happens, Nyksund wouldn’t be able to cope with crowds.” The sense of community, however, is strong: they recently called a dugnad, a Norwegian tradition of collective voluntary action, in order to pave the village square.
Next morning, at the scheduled kelp-forest swimming session, there are no crowds, only myself, Maddy and our guide, Richards. A swim in the Arctic might sound intimidating, but the water, we discover, is not that cold when you’re inside 7mm-thick neoprene. We snorkel for an hour through a startlingly colourful world of bronze kelp fronds and vast schools of fish. Bright pink sea urchins cling to golden stalks of seaweed and, in the indigo blue distance, we glimpse the shapes of large grey cod. Beyond them, unseen, are the orcas, dolphins, seals and whales that inhabit this fertile world, a world that rolls onward, for the time being, unaware of human machinations over its future.
I dive down into the forest, pushing through the golden stems of kelp and turning over to watch air bubbles sliding up the silky fronds to the glittering surface.
Later, warming up in the cafe that also serves as an antiques shop, I meet the unofficial custodian of the town’s spirit, Atle Valland. Born here in 1944, Valland remembers a harsh environment where children were expected to work from the age of seven, their nimble fingers handy for slicing out the prized cod’s tongue. Having left, aged 16, to become a ship’s engineer, Valland returned in 2022 to find a few brave souls moving in. He shows me his prized collection of Russian porcelain. “I’m not a collector,” he chuckles. “I just take care of old things.” That care extends to a vast assortment of whalebones, tools, paintings, furniture and photographs, which he plans to turn into a museum.
On our last night, we join a good-humoured group for dinner, including the vicar, Gry, and her husband, Radar, who comes from the Lofoten Islands, about 100 miles to the south. When talk turns to the future of Nyksund, Radar has a warning: “Lofoten has so many tourists now, people are complaining that sometimes they can’t leave their houses. The streets are too full.”
The diesel engine altered the layout of this coast for a previous generation and now another technological innovation is driving more change. The Lofoten tourism tsunami powered by social media is bringing vast crowds to villages unused to visitors. Nyksund art gallery owner and photographer Svein Erik Tøien was moved to create a surrealistic collage of a giant cruise ship squeezed into Nyksund’s diminutive harbour. “I wanted to ask a question,” he says. “Is this what we want?”
When Maddy and I leave, we drive across the bumpy Nyksund causeway, then down 5.6 miles of narrow gravel track on the island of Langøya before we reach asphalt. In the past, perhaps, remoteness was as plentiful as the fish. Now the challenge is to make this most capricious of commodities into something sustainable.
Travel was provided by Discover the World, which offers a seven-night self-drive journey, Around Vesteralen, from £1,227pp including B&B accommodation (three nights in Nyksund), car rental and whale-watching. Further information from the Northern Norway tourist board
Norway’s largest pension fund, KLP, has said that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell equipment to the Israeli military because the equipment is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.
The two companies are the Oshkosh Corporation, a United States company mostly focused on trucks and military vehicles, and ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial firm that makes a broad selection of products, ranging from elevators and industrial machinery to warships.
“In June 2024, KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the [Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,” Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
“Our conclusion is that the companies Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are contravening our responsible investment guidelines,” the statement said.
“We have therefore decided to exclude them from our investment universe.”
According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.
KLP, founded in 1949 and the country’s largest pension fund, oversees a fund worth about $114bn. It is a public pension fund owned by municipalities and businesses in the public sector, and has a pension scheme that covers about 900,000 people, mostly municipal workers, according to its website.
Vehicles and warships
KLP said that it had been in touch with both companies before it made its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment that is used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza”, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.
ThyssenKrupp told KLP that “it has a long-term relationship with [the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four warships of the type Sa’ar 6 to the Israeli Navy in the period November 2020 to May 2021.
The German company also said it had plans to deliver a submarine to the Israeli Navy later this year.
When asked by KLP what checks and balances were made when it came to the use of the equipment the companies delivered, KLP said both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to document the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in violations of humanitarian law”.
“Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law,” said Aziz.
Previous divestments
This is not the first time that the pension fund has divested from companies linked to possible human rights abuses.
In 2021, KLP divested from 16 companies, including telecom giant Motorola, that it concluded were linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The pension fund said there was an “unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”.
That same year, KLP also said it was divesting from the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military government.
Last summer, KLP also divested from US firm Caterpillar. In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, the KLP’s Aziz wrote that Caterpillar’s bulldozers undergo adjustments in Israel by the military and local companies, and are subsequently used in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“The constant use of these weaponised bulldozers in the occupied Palestinian territory has led to a series of human rights warnings from United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organisations over the last two decades about the company’s involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure,” she wrote.
“It is therefore impossible to assert that the company has implemented adequate measures to avoid becoming involved in future norm violations.”
The latest move builds on a series of similar decisions among several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli companies for their involvement in either the war in Gaza or because of links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In May, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it would divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy because of the company’s involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.
This came after an earlier decision in December last year to sell all shares it had in another Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements.
Other pension funds as well as wealth funds have also, in recent years, distanced themselves from companies accused of enabling or cooperating with Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its war on Gaza.
In February 2024, Denmark’s largest pension fund divested from several Israeli banks and companies as the fund feared its investments could be used to fund the settlements in the West Bank.
Six months later, the United Kingdom’s largest pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), said it would sell off all its investments linked to Israel because of its war on Gaza. The fund, which totals about $79bn, said it would sell its $101m worth of investments after pressure from its members.
Gjert Ingebrigtsen, the father and former trainer of Norwegian star Jakob Ingebrigtsen, has been cleared of abusing the two-time Olympic champion.
In the climax of a trial that has gripped Norway, the court announced that there was insufficient evidence of Jakob’s claims that his father had overseen a childhood of fear and intimidation marked by violence and threats.
However, Gjert has been found guilty of hitting Jakob’s younger sister Ingrid, now 19, in the face with a towel during a row in 2022.
Gjert has been given a suspended prison sentence of 15 days for the incident and fined 10,000 Norwegian Kroner (£745).
