Behind the advertising, the sponsored athletes and the billions that move through this industry sits a far less glamorous side: the legal one. Manufacturers fight over patents, over trade marks, over what an advert is allowed to claim, and over how their shoes are made. Here are five cases that left a mark on the trade.
1. Skechers and the magic that wasn’t: Shape-Ups and the FTC
In the late 2000s Skechers launched Shape-Ups, built on a curved, deliberately unstable sole. The advertising said they toned muscle, helped with weight loss and improved posture, all while you simply walked about. The campaigns were everywhere, fronted by Kim Kardashian, Joe Montana and Stacy Keibler. Sales went through the roof and the shoe became a genuine cultural moment.
In 2012 the US Federal Trade Commission brought a case over deceptive advertising and the absence of evidence behind the claims. Skechers agreed to pay $40 million in settlement, refund customers, and stop making the claims.
A health or fitness claim has to rest on evidence – even when the product is an everyday shoe. UK advertising rules say much the same thing: the CAP Code requires objective claims to be substantiated before they run.
It was an expensive lesson, and it pushed Skechers towards comfort technologies they could actually demonstrate. For the rest of us it is a reminder to treat any miracle promise on a shoe box with the suspicion it deserves.
2. Flyknit against Primeknit: Nike and Adidas on the knitted upper
Nike launched Flyknit in 2012: a way of knitting the upper that cut manufacturing waste and improved the fit. Adidas followed shortly after with Primeknit, also a knitted upper.
Nike sued for patent infringement in several countries. The fight ran mostly through the American and German courts, with mixed results: at times a court stopped Primeknit sales in one territory, at others the claim failed. Both companies carried on developing their own version regardless.
What the litigation shows is how much a few months’ head start is worth – and why every detail of a manufacturing process now gets patented.
3. The Adidas three stripes: a trade mark war without end
The three parallel stripes are a registered trade mark and one of the most recognisable marks anywhere. Adidas defend them exceptionally hard, and have brought hundreds of actions against designs they consider confusingly similar.
Some were won, some settled, some lost outright. In 2016 an American court granted an injunction against a Skechers model over its resemblance to an Adidas design. In 2019, though, the EU General Court annulled the European registration of the three stripes themselves for being too broad – proof that even the most fiercely defended mark is not untouchable.
One curious footnote: in 2017 Adidas filed an opposition against a Tesla application for a logo made of three lines. It never reached a courtroom – Tesla withdrew the application.
4. Jumpman, and who owns a photograph
The silhouette of Michael Jordan in mid-air is among the most recognisable logos ever drawn. Underneath it sits a photograph by Jacobus Rentmeester, taken for Life magazine in 1984, before Jordan had signed with Nike at all.
In 1985 Nike and Rentmeester agreed a licence for the photograph, worth around $15,000 for two years. Thirty years later, in 2015, the photographer sued for copyright infringement over the logo itself. The claim was dismissed, the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal in 2018, and the Supreme Court declined to hear it in 2019.
The court accepted that the pose may well have been inspired by the photograph, but held that the pose itself is not protected – what is protected is the particular way it was captured. An entire industry of visual identity balances on that distinction.
5. Ethics as legal exposure: conditions in the factories
Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, Nike, Adidas and Reebok faced accusations that had nothing to do with their products and everything to do with how they were made: child labour, punishing conditions and wages that did not cover living costs, mostly in Asian factories.
Few of these ended in a direct penalty for the brands themselves – the legal responsibility sat with the suppliers. The effect was larger than any fine would have been: sustained public pressure that hit reputation and then sales. The companies adopted codes of conduct, brought in external factory audits, and began publishing supplier lists.
That period changed the industry more than any patent dispute did. Since then, buying a pair of trainers has meant buying the story behind them as well – and the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 now requires larger companies selling here to publish what they are doing about it.
What is left of them
Four of the five come down to the same two questions: where inspiration ends and appropriation begins, and how much weight a single word in an advert has to carry. The fifth is a reminder that the most expensive penalty does not always come from a court.