The litigation between Nike and John Geiger over the designer’s Air Force 1 lookalike sneaker is escalating in California district court this week.
In a document filed Tuesday, Geiger’s attorneys countersued Nike’s lawsuit with their own claims, seeking to “invalidate and cancel” what the Geiger team argues are unenforceable trademarks. Throughout the 68-page document, Geiger responds to each statement made in Nike’s August 2021 amended complaint, which added the designer to an existing lawsuit against Los Angeles-based La La Land Production & Design Inc. In the amended suit from August, Nike claimed that Geiger’s GF-01 sneakers, which it says were made by La La Land Production, infringe on the trade dress of its own Air Force 1 design. Geiger says La La Land Production “merely created a GF-01 prototype based on the design Geiger provided” and is not involved in the manufacturing.
The crux of Geiger’s defense revolves around the pieces of the Air Force 1 which are protected by Nike’s trade dress registration, namely the exterior stitching, paneling, eyelets, and the ridge-patterned outsole. It cites recently released modified versions of the Air Force 1, like Travis Scott’s 2019 Cactus Jack collaboration, 2021’s Air Force 1 Experimental (which had its own share of legal issues), and a Serena Williams-inspired iteration as examples of Nike deviating from its own trade dress elements. Because of this, the counterclaim argues that Nike’s trade dress protections are essentially too vague.
Post je objavljen 04.03.2022. u 09:54 sati.