Disputes over the intellectual property rights of sports brands are frequent, this time among industry giants.
According to the Beijing Business Daily, on December 14, Nike is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to block the import of a number of Adidas sneakers, including a joint series with Stella McCartney and Pharrel Williams.
After the news was exposed, the relevant topics immediately rushed to the hot search in China.
Nike sued Adi for infringing six of its patents
Nike said in its complaint that Adidas has 49 shoes using PrimeKnit technology, which infringes six of Nike's patents.
In response, according to Reuters, an Adidas spokesperson was quoted as saying that the company is analyzing the complaint and will defend Adidas against these allegations, and stressed that Primeknit technology originates from years of research.
Launched in 2012, Flyknit Flying Wire technology is an innovative upper manufacturing process that "delivers performance, design, and aesthetics while reducing material and waste," according to Nike. ”
Five months after Nike released Flyknit, Adidas launched Primeknit.
Both brands use knitting techniques extensively in their product lines, such as Nike's running shoes, basketball shoes, football shoes, etc., including basketball star LeBron James and football star C Ronaldo's signature shoes.
The Adidas shoes that were considered infringing covered casual shoes, football shoes, running shoes, and hiking shoes, involving ultraboost, Terrex, X Speedflow and other product lines.
The intellectual property war between the big names is escalating
In fact, this is not the first confrontation between Adidas and Nike - last year, Adidas also tried to sue Nike for invalidating two patents in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that Nike copied Primeknit technology, but failed.
Nike said the Flyknit technology is the result of its $100 million research and development.
In the more than $58 billion sneaker market, the intellectual property war between big names has escalated in recent years.
In 2018, Nike also sued german sports brand PUMA for infringing its Flyknit patent, and the two sides finally reached a settlement in January 2020.
In November, Nike and U.S. brand Skechers reached a settlement agreement over three patent lawsuits, and a five-year court dispute finally came to an end.
Prior to this, Nike had filed lawsuits against Skechers for many years in a row.
In September this year, Nike's latest financial report showed that revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 increased by 16% year-on-year to $12.2 billion.
In November, Adidas reported fiscal third quarter 2021 with revenue of $6.6 billion, up only 3.4% year-on-year, while operating profit fell 8.5% year-on-year. According to different regional divisions, Greater China is the main market where Adidas' global performance has declined the most year-on-year, and according to the third quarter financial report, under the premise of currency neutrality, greater China's third-quarter revenue fell by 14.6% year-on-year. In this regard, Adidas CEO Casper Rosterd said in a conference call that China's demand for sports products is strong, but the current demand is more inclined to Chinese local brands than global brands.
Nike and Adidas, which fought in court, "shared suffering" on another level, and the supply chain was jointly affected by the shutdown of the Vietnamese factory, and several performance data were lower than analysts expected.
After the news of the big fight between the sports giants over intellectual property issues returned to China, the style of the painting commented by netizens seemed to be a bit off.
Under the topic of #Nike suing Adidas for plagiarism, a "fight up" image comment received 50,000 likes.
Some netizens said that Nike Adidas fought casually and only supported domestic sports brands.
Nike announced the acquisition of virtual sneaker brand RTFKT
December 14 news, according to Nike's official website, Nike announced the acquisition of virtual sneaker design company RTFKT.
Founded in 2020, the company produces digital products such as sneakers and ensures the authenticity of products by using blockchain technology. The specific financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le and Steven Vasilev, RTFKT also produces NFT collectibles and memes, according to the official website of RTFKT.
John Donahoe, Chief Executive Officer of Nike, said, "This acquisition is another step in Nike's accelerated digital transformation to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sports, creativity, gaming and culture. ”
In recent months, Nike has been planning for its digital future. It filed seven requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office at the end of October to protect its trademark in "downloadable virtual goods" and related services. In November, it debuted Nikeland World in the Meta universe through a partnership with video game platform Roblox, where users can play games and equip their characters with digital Nike items.
Adidas is also actively deepening, not only its brand adidas Originals entered the metacosm and issued POP NFT, but also recently reached cooperation with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and meta-universe game platform The Sandbox to establish a meta-universe brand.