Nike Sues Former Employee For Infringing Trademark With Customized Kicks
Image via KickRich
Nike is no stranger to strict guidelines on its branding and protected imagery, including its iconic Swoosh design. You might remember the Satan Shoes and the legal ramifications that followed. Or the Soulja Boy shoes back in 2013. Now, its latest case sits with a former employee and his company, KickRich.
Jeffrey Waskowiak and KickRich were accused by Nike of trademark infringement and dilution, or reselling Nike and Converse products after being altered in ways that weren’t previously approved, or official. Although the bases of the colorful custom sneakers are indeed genuine Nike articles (like the Air Force 1) and KickRich isn’t manufacturing or selling counterfeit products, the fact that the design is used in the first place is already enough to set Nike on its heels.
The complaint filed in court alleges that the shoes “combine purportedly genuine Nike shoe soles with uppers fabricated entirely by the defendants” and feature “reproductions” of “protected trade dress,” with the company making a profit from selling the unauthorized product, as The Fashion Law reports.
There was also an element in which Nike highlighted that Waskowiak was combining the Nike brand with other branding, such as the USPS, which is a questionable move, given the USPS incident in which the actual company landed in hot water for.
Dubbed “illegal customizations” by Nike, the custom offerings by KickRich do showcase a mark of craftsmanship on their own: intricate design, illustrations, colorings, with no part of the shoe left behind. They range from personalized customs to themes to color palettes. And in every post caption, they highlight their distance from the Nike company, referring to creations as solely for “artistic expression.”
In a similar case ongoing with a different company, Drip Creationz, Nike has declared that it’s facing a “growing threat” of trademark infringement. It claims that it “cannot allow ‘customizers’ to build a business on the backs of its most iconic trademarks.”
[via Complex, image via KickRich]
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