The case began in 2009, when Nike claimed in a lawsuit that Already's Sugar and Soulja Boy shoes infringed Nike's trademark on the stitching, eyelet panels and other features of Air Force 1. See e.g. Home » Mandour & Associates, APC – California Intellectual Property Blog » Nike Sued for Trademark Infringement Over “Lottery Pick”. In 2014, Adidas was granted a trademark on “three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied on the product in any direction” on clothing, hats and shoes. Trademark Registration Number 3,451,905 (the “‘905 Registration”). Some things are forever. One new tactic fashioned by the sportswear giant, in particular, started to emerge in 2010, when “Nike [began] approaching licensed U.S. customs brokers and requesting the broker’s assistance to provide it with information regarding a specific (or multiple) shipments,” Deanna Clark-Esposito, an international trade attorney, reported at the time. On the heels of being slapped with a trademark infringement and dilution lawsuit by Nike over its Staple Pigeon OG sneaker, which is a dead ringer for the Pigeon Dunk that Nike first released in 2005, Warren Lotas has assured consumers who pre-ordered the allegedly infringing sneakers that they will get them. Also in the mix were exact replicas of Nike’s Jordan 11 sneakers, albeit without any explicit Nike branding at all. And Kobe Bryant. *The case is Nike, Inc. v. B&H Customs Services, Inc. et al, 1:20-cv-01214 (SDNY). And Legends (allegedly). It sits, as far as we can tell, on a shelf between Dorothy's ruby slippers and Perseus' winged sandals." International Kennel Club v. Mighty Star, Inc., 846 F.2d 1079, 1084 (7th Cir.1988). In trademark infringement suits, monetary relief may also be available, including: (1) defendant's profits, (2) damages sustained by the plaintiff, and (3) the costs of the action. The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, for instance, has expressed discontent with Nike’s broadening approach to laying legal blame, citing “concern with both the merits of the claims being raised against the brokers and the potential precedential value that a successful claim could have on the industry. Nikes skateboard line is moved and hated. Rentmeester’s infringement suit, filed in a Portland, ... Adidas filed a petition in the US Patent and Trademark Office to invalidate Nike’s patent for “footwear having a textile upper.” Having led the Chicago Bulls to six national championships, Jordan has been one of the most effectively marketed athletes and was considered responsible for popularizing the NBA on a global level in the 1980’s and 1990’s. And Nike. However, it was Nike who registered the RF trademark in 2010. Like heroes (allegedly). $977,414.00. So long as consumers are not likely to be confused, there is no trademark infringement. CREDIT: *The case is Nike, Inc. v. Warren Lotas and Warren Lotas LLC. Bugs Bunny has an Upcoming Trademark Battle, Angry Birds vs Angry Chicken: Trademark Case Filed with USPTO, The Lincoln Project Faces Accusations of Trademark Infringement. Nike’s aggressive fight against fakes dates back decades, with efforts heating up in the late 1980s, when “multinational companies from all industries started outsourcing production to factories in the coastal provinces of Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang,” the New York Times previously reported, reflecting on what would become an enormous shift for the U.S. companies and consumers. All the while, New York-based B&H Customs Services – the customs broker enlisted by Hana – was responsible for filing documentation of its own, including an Import Security Filing, for each of the shipments. Sportswear giant Nike has lost a trademark battle to a UK micro business over an advertising campaign In July, UK micro business Frank Industries Ltd (“Frank”) successfully enforced its trademark ‘LNDR’ in a legal battle against Nike, who used ‘LDNR’ in its ‘Nothing … Nike Fights FUEL Trademark Infringement Case By Claiming Abandonment San Diego – Fuel Clothing Company Inc., founded in 1992 by skateboarding enthusiasts Shane Levi Gould and Buster Halterman, has been pursuing a trademark infringement lawsuit in … Artiva is a real company in the business of routinely “importing and selling lamps and furniture manufactured primarily in China” by way of its retail outlets in the U.S. Nikes skateboard line has their swoosh logo and says “Nike sb” under it. Nike argued that the ‘905 Registration protecte… In the wake of these early customs broker lawsuits, Nike has only ramped up its activity, and consistently expanded its net to include this larger pool of potential defendants, albeit not without pushback from relevant parties. Sneaker companies were part of that mass manufacturing exodus, and as they set their sights on cheaper labor that existed beyond the borders of the U.S., “a new brand of factory, [ones] specializing in fakes, began copying authentic Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok shoes.”, “Counterfeiters played a low-budget game of industrial espionage, bribing employees at the [brands’ official] factories to lift samples or copy blueprints,” the Times’ Nicholas Schmidle wrote in 2010. The appraised value of the sneakers, according to Customs? Roger Federer registered his full name and signature as trademarks. Some things are not. “Beginning in or around July 2017 and continuing through September 2018, the defendants caused and/or arranged for the transportation from China to the U.S. of at least four shipping containers of [millions of dollars’ worth of] counterfeit Nike sneakers.” According to Nike, the defendants worked together to facilitate the transport of the sneakers from China to the U.S., and to ensure that they were likely to bypass U.S. Customs without being seized. At the heart of the plan was “filing and/or assisting in the filing of the fraudulent entry documentation related to the four shipments … with U.S. Customs [by the defendants] for the direct purpose of transporting and importing the counterfeit Nike sneakers into the United States.” For starters, this took the form of the labeling of the sneakers in official export/import document: “in the transportation records for all four shipments, the contents were lamps to be delivered to a company operating under the name Artiva US, Inc.” The issue, per Nike: “The shipping containers did not contain ‘lamps,’ and they were not destined for Artiva.”. The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, accuses Lotas of trademark infringement and condemns his shoes as "illegal fakes." 7,401,420. Within this role, Shine International “contracted with and paid” the shipping companies to transport the goods from China to the U.S. (those companies are not named as defendants) and designated New York-based Hana International Logistics as the receiving agent of the goods since “Shine has no U.S.-based operations.” Further perpetuating the scheme, Hana International – just like its fellow defendants – allegedly issued “fraudulent and facially inadequate” documentation in connection with the large-scale shipments, ultimately enabling three of them to “make it past U.S. Customs,” and thereafter, be “delivered somewhere in the United States.”. Alongside luxury names like Louis Vuitton, Hermeś, and Rolex, Nike has consistently earned itself a seat at this doubled-edged-sword of a table – where companies are both so well-known and so heavily plagued by fakes – thanks to its arsenal of instantly recognizable, and thus, enormously valuable trademarks. However, while Artiva is, in fact, a legitimate entity that legitimately sells lights, Nike claims that the Southern California-based company “was completely unaware of the four shipments,” and “does not import footwear of any kind. The term “lottery pick” is a draft pick whose position is determined through the lottery, while the non-playoff teams involved in the process are often called “lottery teams.”. A finding of willful trademark infringement greatly influences the amount of damages that a court would award. In each of those lawsuits, all of which centered on the transport of counterfeit goods, Nike sought millions of dollars in damages from the customs brokers on the basis that “due to the increase in identity theft, it was without knowledge of who the actual importers of record/consignees [were]” in each of the instances of counterfeit shipments uncovered and seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“Customs”), per Clark-Esposito. After linking the defendants to at least three shipments that predated the one that was seized in November 2019, Nike filed a lengthy and strongly-worded suit, one that mirrors some of the cases it has filed against customs brokers in the past. In official court documents, Urban Motive Sportswear wrote that Nike’s infringement on its trademark has “damaged us in a manner that cannot fully be measured or compensated in economic terms and for which there is not adequate remedy at law.”, In the NBA, fourteen teams participate in the Draft Lottery, which is weighted so that the team with the worst record will have the best chance to secure a higher draft pick. At the outset of this litigation, both parties had standing to pursue their competing claims in court. The company also said that the photographer did not have a monopoly on Michael Jordan, his athletic prowess and appearance, or images of him performing a dunk. In order to establish liability for trademark infringement and unfair competition, Nike must show: 1) that it has a protectible trademark, and 2) likelihood of confusion as to the source or origin of defendants' product. Skateboarding is liked by many to be anti corporate. Nike accused the defendants of nine counts of trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting, trademark cyberpiracy and other illegal actions under federal and New York State laws. Nike claimed that it designed a shoe in 1982 called the Air Force 1, which sold millions of pairs each year. Ultimately, over the nearly one-year period between July 2017 and September 2018, the defendants were able to successfully import three containers of thousands of counterfeit Nike sneakers into the U.S. The company asserts in its suit that this is a common – and particiarly telling – move, as “counterfeiters often import footwear that copies [its] Jordan 11 trade dress without any identifying trademarks, and then after those products clear U.S. Customs, they attach counterfeit trademarks.”. Among the sneakers seized by Customs were ones from Virgil Abloh’s coveted collaboration with the brand to similarly in-demand Air Max 98 models, complete with Nike’s name and similarly-protected swoosh logo. In the process of doing so, Nike claims that B&H “was put on actual notice of discrepancies in the documents it had received and utilized to file entry in the name of Artiva,” including inaccuracies in connection with the importer of record, among other things, but failed to exercise the required level of “due diligence” to verify the validity of the documentation provided to it by the other defendants. Nike's Trademark Infringement Case Turns on Covenant Not to Sue. From its name and world-famous swoosh logo to slogans like “Just Do It,” and thanks to truly large-scale marketing endeavors and the roster of the world’s most esteemed athletes (and non-athlete designers and endorsers) on its payroll, Nike has so thoroughly tapped into the consumer consciousness that its trademarks are rife with reputation and all but begging to be knocked-off en masse. Nike, based in Beaverton, Oregon, launched the low-cut Air Force 1 sneaker in 1982 and sells millions of them each year. 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