Nike accuses Fleet Feet of trying to 'silence' ad campaign and appeal
Nike has asked a US court to halt a preliminary injunction against one of its advertising campaigns while it files an appeal.
In a filing at the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, yesterday, December 10, Nike said Fleet Feet’s argument was “riddled with internal contradictions” and fails to show that a stay pending appeal is not appropriate.
“Fleet Feet seeks to silence the expressive speech of Nike’s advertising campaign while opposing Nike’s efforts to preserve an effective appellate remedy,” Nike said.
Nike added that a stay pending appeal, while Nike appeals to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, is the “most appropriate way to balance the competing interests” of both parties.
Earlier this month, WIPR reported that the district court had granted a preliminary injunction halting Nike’s “Sport Changes Everything” advertising campaign, following a trademark infringement complaint from Fleet Feet.
It said Nike’s campaign, which was launched in July 2019, was likely to swamp Fleet Feet’s trademarks and would lead consumers to wrongly assume there is an affiliation between the two companies.
Nike appealed the order, but this was opposed by Fleet Feet.
In its most recent filing, Nike said Fleet Feet faults its motion for stay for “largely repeating arguments the court has already considered and rejected”, but at the same time, “also attacks Nike” for citing new case law that it did not previously use in its argument.
“Fleet Feet cannot have it both ways,” the filing said.
Nike also hit back at Fleet Feet’s claims that Nike has not met the demands of the injunction.
It said that Fleet Feet “trumpets” the court’s acceptance that Nike’s original stay motion, filed before the preliminary injunction had been entered, was premature.
“But that does not stop Fleet Feet from complaining that all traces of Nike’s use of ‘Sport Changes Everything’ did not immediately vanish from the internet once the injunction was entered,” Nike said.
Nike said it has acted reasonably to comply with the injunction by cancelling future campaign events and working to take down all online posts containing the slogan.
On December 9, Fleet Feet submitted a filing outlining a number of ways in which Nike was failing to comply with the injunction.
It said it had found 12 adverts on YouTube using the allegedly infringing phrase. Additionally, it said a number of posts of the advertising campaign were still present on Nike’s Twitter and Instagram.
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