Nike doubles down on lawsuit against reseller for counterfeit shoes

Nike has doubled down on its lawsuit against reseller StockX with an amended complaint, alleging that it recently purchased counterfeit shoes from the platform. Despite StockX's guarantees of authenticity, the amended complaint seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE said Nike recently obtained "four confirmed pairs of counterfeit 'Nike' shoes", which were purchased within a two-month period on StockX's platform.

StockX also tagged its "Verified Authentic" handtag to each pair of counterfeit shoes and included a paper receipt in the shoe box stating that each pair of counterfeit shoes is "100% Authentic". According to the complaint, at least one pair of those counterfeit shoes are the same style as one of the infringing Nike-branded Vault NFTS.

In February, Nike sued the Detroit-based reseller for selling NFTs with unauthorised images of Nike shoes. The footwear manufacturing giant said previously that the Vault NFTs' "inflated prices and murky terms of purchase and ownership have already led to public criticism of StockX and allegations that the Vault NFTs are a scam".

Since then, Nike alleged in the amended complaint that StockX has made a series of modifications to its representations surrounding its Vault NFT offerings. For example, after Nike shined a spotlight on several problematic and deceptive terms governing the infringing Nike-branded NFTs, StockX deleted and/or replaced those terms. StockX also modified Vault NFT marketing, for example, promising owners of the infringing Nike-branded NFTs exclusive StockX benefits.

"Those changes do nothing to excuse StockX’s ongoing infringement of Nike’s marks or to resolve its past infringement and, indeed, by the time those modifications were made, StockX had already offered for sale, sold, and/or released into the stream of commerce all of the infringing Nike-branded NFTs," Nike said.

It added that StockX's "revisionary conduct" is nonetheless relevant to Nike's claims, but instead of admitting that certain terms that existed during a critical infringement period were altered, StockX’s Answer to Nike’s Complaint "obfuscated the fact that it scrambled to revise its representations to consumers in the wake of Nike’s claims of trademark infringement and dilution".

StockX has since defended allegations of its authentication process, saying in a statement that it takes customer protection extremely seriously and has invested millions to fight the proliferation of counterfeit products that every global marketplace faces today. It also called Nike's latest filing "baseless and curious" and that it was "nothing more than a panicked and desperate attempt to resuscitate its losing legal case" against StockX's innovative Vault NFT programme.

"Nike’s latest filing is not only baseless but also is curious given that their own brand protection team has communicated confidence in our authentication programme, and that hundreds of Nike employees – including current senior executives – use StockX to buy and sell products," StockX said. It added that Nike’s challenge "has no merit and clearly demonstrates its lack of understanding of the modern marketplace".

Separately, Nike also slapped a lawsuit on lululemon in January, accusing the latter of patent infringement over the latter's at-home fitness device MIRROR and its related mobile apps. Nike was previously reported to be seeking triple damages for lululemon's alleged infringement, and a variety of other remedies.

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