NIKE no longer had a legally cognizable interest in the validity of the preliminary injunction.
NIKE, Inc., was precluded from appealing a district court’s preliminary injunction issued in November 2019 barring the athletic footwear giant from using the phrase “Sport Changes Everything” in an advertising campaign, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond has ruled. While the appeal was pending, NIKE ended its advertising campaign and disavowed any intent to resume use of the allegedly infringing tagline. Because NIKE no longer had a legally cognizable interest in the validity of the preliminary injunction, the appeal was moot. Even if the court were to assume that the injunction reached a category of “potential speech” beyond variations on NIKE’s terminated tagline, NIKE did not identify any speech threatened or curtailed by the order (Fleet Feet, Inc. v. NIKE, Inc., January 26, 2021, Diaz, A.).
Case date: 26 January 2021
Case number: No. 19-2390
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
_____________________________
To make sure you do not miss out on regular updates from the Kluwer Trademark Blog, please subscribe here.
Kluwer IP Law
The 2022 Future Ready Lawyer survey showed that 79% of lawyers think that the importance of legal technology will increase for next year. With Kluwer IP Law you can navigate the increasingly global practice of IP law with specialized, local and cross-border information and tools from every preferred location. Are you, as an IP professional, ready for the future?
Learn how Kluwer IP Law can support you.
