On December 10, 2021, local time, Reuters reported that Nike is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to block the import of several Adidas sneakers, including a joint collection with Stella McCartney and Pharrell Williams.
Nike argues that the German sportswear manufacturer is infringing on its own Flyknit flywire design technology.
In its complaint filed on December 8, Nike said that Adidas has 49 shoes using PrimeKnit technology, which infringes on six of Nike's patents.
In response, Reuters quoted the contents of an email from an Adidas spokesperson, who said the company was analyzing the complaint and would defend Adidas against the allegations, stressing that the Primeknit technology stems from its own years of research.
According to Nike's description, Flyknit Flywire technology was introduced in 2012 as an innovative upper manufacturing process that "can excel in performance, design, and aesthetic significance while reducing material and waste."
And five months after Nike released Flyknit, Adidas launched Primeknit.
Both brands use knitting extensively in their product lines, such as Nike's running shoes, basketball shoes, and soccer shoes, which include the signature shoes of basketball star LeBron James and soccer star Cairo.
The Adidas shoes that are considered to be infringing cover casual shoes, soccer shoes, running shoes, hiking shoes, involving product lines such as Ultraboost, Terrex, X Speedflow, etc.
This is not the first time Adidas and Nike have faced off - last year, Adidas also tried unsuccessfully to sue Nike in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for invalidating two patents, arguing that Nike had copied Primeknit technology.
Nike said that Flyknit technology is the result of its $100 million in funding research and development.
In the athletic shoe market, which is worth more than $58 billion, the intellectual property battle between big brands has escalated in recent years.
In 2018, Nike had also sued German sports brand PUMA for infringing its Flyknit patent, and the two sides finally reached a settlement in January 2020.
In November this year, Nike and the American brand Sketch reached a settlement agreement on three patent lawsuits, a five-year-long court dispute that finally came to an end.
Before that, Nike had filed lawsuits against Sketch for many years.
In September this year, Nike announced its latest earnings report, showing that revenue in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2022 rose 16% year-on-year to $12.2 billion.
In November, Adidas announced its fiscal 2021 third-quarter earnings, with revenue of $6.6 billion, up only a modest 3.4% year-over-year, and operating profit down 8.5%.
Nike and Adidas, who have been fighting in court, have been "in trouble together" on another level, with the supply chain being hit by the Vietnam factory shutdown and several performance figures below analysts' expectations.
