USPTO invalidates Crocs clog design patent

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has invalidated a design patent owned by moulded footwear company Crocs for its famous clog.

According to a press release from rival USA Dawgs, published on Thursday, August 10, US patent number D517,789 was invalidated for the third and final time.

The USPTO had begun investigating the patent in 2012, based on a complaint by USA Dawgs.

USA Dawgs said that the USPTO had found that the claimed design was published more than one year before Crocs applied for the patent.

The ‘789 patent was filed in May 2004, while a shoe that is “substantially the same as the claimed design” of the patent was described in a printed publication in December 2002.

Steven Mann, CEO of USA Dawgs, said: “It is unfortunate that Crocs has been able to use this patent to suppress its competitors for so long. We have always been confident that, given a fair playing field, Dawgs would become a prominent competitor.”

Crocs can appeal against the ruling.

Last month, USA Dawgs sued Crocs at the US District Court for the District of Nevada, accusing the footwear company of trade dress infringement and computer fraud.

USA Dawgs claimed it had developed, manufactured and sold a “distinct Z-shaped upper” for sandals that is intended to fit over the top of a wearer’s foot and look like a “Z”.

According to the suit, Crocs’s ‘Women’s Swiftwater Sandal’ is confusingly similar.

USA Dawgs also claimed that Crocs had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act “in an intentional and successful effort to deprive Dawgs of sales of its products”.

More information on the July lawsuit can be found here.

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