Skechers kicks Fila with IP lawsuit
US shoemaker Skechers has sued sportswear company Fila for allegedly infringing two design patents and trade dress protecting a popular product.
The claims centre on the similarity between the Skechers Go Walk and the Amazen Memory Moc products, both blue shoes with white stitching and a hole in the back.
They were filed on July 1 at the US District Court for the Central District of California-Western Division.
A Fila spokesman said: "Fila believes the claim is without merit and we intend to defend it vigorously."
Skechers’s shoe, of which millions of pairs have been sold, has significantly contributed to the success of the Skechers Go series, the company claimed.
It said it wrote to Fila in July 2013 to request that the sports company stop infringing the design patents and trade dress protecting the Skechers Go Walk shoe.
A month later Fila agreed to stop making the Amazen Memory Moc and subsequently said it had redesigned the model, according to the complaint.
“Despite such notice, defendant Fila continues to wilfully, wantonly and deliberately engage in acts of patent infringement, trade dress infringement, dilution, and unfair competition with its Amazen Memory Moc shoe,” it added.
The complaint compares a sketch of the patented shoe with Fila’s product, and includes multiple pictures of both companies’ products to demonstrate the alleged infringement.
Among the apparently infringing characteristics of the Amazen Memory Moc shoe is an “exact copy of the iconic portal hole in the back of the shoe”, according to Skechers.
The shoemaker claimed that the Amazen Memory Moc so closely resembles its patented invention that an “ordinary observer” would be deceived into buying it.
It added that Fila’s use of its trade dress is likely to deceive consumers and cause confusion.
Skechers claimed the infringements are wilful and it wants a permanent injunction and damages, as well as profits made from the allegedly infringing shoes.
If a judgment goes in Skechers’s favour, the company added, it wants any infringing goods destroyed within ten days.
