US Supreme Court Dismisses Nike & Adidas Patent Dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently declined Nike’s request to review a decision made by the U.S. Patent Office tribunal, which canceled a portion of Nike’s shoe patent in the company’s dispute with Adidas.

The court rejected Nike’s appeal, upholding the lower court’s ruling that supported the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s action. Nike was challenging the tribunal’s decision to invalidate certain elements of their patent, arguing that Adidas did not raise the relevant arguments during the proceedings.

This dispute is part of the ongoing patent battles between Nike and Adidas, involving technology used in their respective shoe designs. In 2012, Adidas filed a petition with the patent office tribunal to invalidate one of Nike’s patents related to seamless knitted upper components for athletic sneakers.

Nike had sought to cancel parts of its patent and substitute it with a less extensive claim, but the board granted the cancellation and denied the amendment, citing earlier publications that covered the same invention.

The case was sent back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit multiple times, with Nike filing appeals that were ultimately rejected. Nike argued that the board should not have canceled a substitute patent element without Adidas raising relevant arguments during the proceedings.

In a separate development, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that the patent office tribunal retaliated against an administrative judge who objected to the panel’s size changes without informing the parties involved.

The Justice Department recommended that the Supreme Court remand Nike’s case to the Federal Circuit to allow the company to challenge the patent-invalidity decision based on the ruling by the Merit Systems Protection Board.