On Günther Klum's otherwise rather inconspicuous Instagram account, things have become exciting in the past few days. The father of top model Heidi Klum, who only entered Instagram users at the beginning of April and had previously mostly uploaded photos of landscapes or newspaper clippings, received a post from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in May. Günther Klum uploaded a photo of the letter to Instagram on Tuesday. He was informed about the "receipt of an application for a declaration of invalidity". "Why is that?" He wrote. 

The background to this is that Günther Klum applied to the EUIPO for the trademark rights to the name of his granddaughter Leni Klum in November 2020 - apparently without his daughter's knowledge. This application was approved in March 2021, as Günther Klum demonstrated with screenshots on Instagram on Tuesday. This means that all trademark rights for areas such as cosmetics, music, jewelry and fashion belong to Günther Klum. 

However, his daughter Heidi does not seem to like this. Even if the model is not named, the origin of the application for nullity suggests that it came from her. It was made by the law firm “Lacore”, which in May itself submitted an application for trademark registration for the name Leni Klum. This registration was in turn commissioned by a company called "Heidi Klum Company LLC". This is the company with which Heidi Klum has been managing her career in America since 1999. So it stands to reason that she would like to secure the trademark rights to her daughter's name for herself. 

Günther Klum told the “t-online” platform on Thursday that he had always looked after his family's naming rights.

“I secured the Leni Klum brand many months ago.” Leni's name is “Leni, by the way” because of his mother.

Regarding the approach of the law firm “Lacore”, Klum said: “They only do trademark rights on the side, if at all.

But lawyers want to make a profit, of course. ”The rights to Leni Klum's name are in any case with him - and“ not anywhere else ”.

The 17-year-old Leni Klum had started her career as a model in the past few months and was already on several magazine covers, including together with Mama Heidi on the cover of German Vogue.

In January 2021, Leni Klum celebrated her catwalk debut at the digital Berlin Fashion Week.

The relationship between Heidi and Günther Klum has been tense at least since their wedding with the musician Tom Kaulitz in the summer of 2019. At that time, Günther Klum did not appear for the wedding, since then the two have only appeared together in public occasionally. Günther Klum was employed as the manager of his daughter Heidi for years, the model agency "OneEins fab" founded by him signed numerous participants of "Germany's Next Topmodel" until 2020. In October 2019 it became known that Heidi Klum had founded her own company in Germany. According to media reports, she is the sole managing director of “HK Germany GmbH”, which is based in Berlin. Meanwhile, Günther Klum continues to manage “Heidi Klum GmbH” from Bergisch Gladbach.