Puma Withdraws Its Opposition To America's Fight For Footwear Brand Nike.

Puma and Nike seem to have decided to battle for "shoes," the Nike brand plans to register in the US and abroad. After Nike's victory in May, when a British court rejected Puma's appeal. After a court clerk for the UK Intellectual Property Office rejected its application to freeze Nike's trademark registration) paved. 

The way for Nike's motion to continue the "Shoes" brand during the registration process. Puma's attorneys warned agents of a national trademark that they withdraw their dispute against Nike's trademark "shoe" in the US.

In a statement Thursday, lawyers for Puma of Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd. filed a declaration to formally withdraw objections that led to "prejudice" against the Nike brand.

 "Shoes" for use in connection with computer hardware modules, electronic devices, and computer software. After Puma sent a "letter of protest" to the USPTO arguing that "shoes" was a "descriptive" term and therefore not allowed to be registered, Puma launched an appeals fight in June 2020, claiming that a potential Nike registration should be blocked because it is a term. "descriptive only" for technology-based shoes.

Specifically, Puma claims that the Oregon-based sportswear brand "Beaverton" title "shoe" is phonetically equivalent to the word "shoe" and misspelled it, making it "a generic term for a product sold in the marketplace, and a "temporary shoe" making. And is not an indicator of a particular source of goods/services what the brand's true purpose is.

(It should be noted that Nike does not list shoes as a class of goods in its application, but claims rights in Class 9, such as "Computer hardware module for receiving, processing, and transmit data on the Internet of Things, electronic devices"; "38 includes "Telecommunication services, i.e., data transmission over telecommunications networks.

Wireless communication networks, and the Internet; "and 42" application service providers, including application programming interface software that integrates third-party applications to provide an interactive user experience.")

In addition to the generic claims, Puma claims that the Nike brand also does not meet the registration requirements, as Nike is far from the only country in business with sales of products that "combine shoe technology, hardware, and software". . In fact, Puma claims to be "making and selling computer-enabled shoes at least as far back as 1986," while other companies such as Under Armor, Altra, and Samsung also offer technology-based footwear.

According to Puma, the proliferation of competitive, technology-driven footwear products is likely to mean that "consumers are accustomed to seeing and buying products that combine products and technology, including products that combine software and hardware technology with shoes." 

Therefore, they understand that the word "shoes" is usually used to describe "software combined with foot products, including shoes" and not refer to a manufacturer's product. "Just as consumers understand that spyware describes software in combination with espionage," said Puma, "they will understand that 'shoes' describes software in combination with foot products, including shoes."

Finally, Puma claims that if Nike registered for the "shoes" trademark, "it would have exclusive rights to the descriptive term and would prevent competitors, including [Puma], from using such descriptive terms in the marketplace," and therefore asked TTAB to enforced its objections and refused to register the Nike mark.