American shoe brand Skechers filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York City, accusing the French luxury brand Hermès of infringing on two of Skechers' unique massage-fit sole technologies.

It is reported that the market price of Hermès shoes suspected of infringement is eight times that of Skechers. At this stage, Hermès has not yet issued an official response to Skechers’ complaint.

Recently, American shoe brand Skechers said it filed a lawsuit against French luxury brand Hermès for infringing its sole design patent. Specifically, Skechers issued a statement on its website stating that it is suing Hermès International and Hermès of Paris, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for infringement of its sole design patent.

It is reported that Skechers mentioned in the appeal that the design style used in the soles of the éclair and Envol shoes launched by Hermès in 2022 infringes many patent rights of Skechers MassageFit soles.

“Skechers spends a lot of online resources on product research and development. It is disappointing that Hermès chooses to copy and infringe Skechers’ patented designs.” A Skechers spokesperson declared , when competitors publicly infringed on the company's dominance, Skechers had no choice but to seek legal procedures to resolve the difficulties.

The prosecution documents show that Skechers feels that Hermès’s infringement liability has caused it to suffer damage and lose profits, and it has the right to sue the court to require Hermès to compensate for the damage. The actual amount still needs a court judgment, and it also requires the people to The court issued an order strictly prohibiting Hermès' tort liability. Since then, industry insiders believe that the purpose of Skechers' move may not be to settle claims, but to take this opportunity to further increase brand attention and strengthen brand potential.

Currently, the GOWALKMASSAGEFIT series of casual shoes for sale on Skechers’ official website are priced at approximately 849 yuan to 899 yuan, and are divided into boys’ and girls’ styles. On the Hermès official website, éclair casual shoes are priced at 6,400 yuan; Envol casual shoes are priced at 7,100 yuan.

Published data shows that Skechers is a well-known brand in the United States, which originated in 1992. Skechers is sold in more than 180 countries around the world and has 4,355 physical retail stores. On July 26, local time, Skechers announced its sales results for the second quarter of 2022 as of June 30, saying that total sales in the first quarter reached a "record-breaking" US$1.868 billion, compared with the same period last year (compared to the same period last year) An increase of 12.4%; net profit was approximately US$90 million, a year-on-year decrease of 34.2%. In the first half of the year, Skechers’ transaction volume increased by 19.1% year-on-year to US$3.687 billion, with net profit of US$212 million.

Hermès, a luxury brand founded in 1837, announced its mid-to-late 2022 sales performance on July 29, local time. Calculated at fixed exchange rates, total sales in the second quarter of this year increased by 20% year-on-year to 27.1 billion euros (equivalent to 2.6 billion U.S. dollars); revenue in the first half of the year increased 23% year-on-year to 5.475 billion euros (equivalent to 5.3 billion U.S. dollars), and net profit reached 1.641 billion euros.

Unlike his role in the court this time, Skechers has been a regular guest in the dock of the People's Court in recent years. In October 2014, Converse filed a large-scale lawsuit against dozens of well-known brands, and Skechers was one of the injured parties. In September 2015, Adidas sued Skechers for illegal infringement of several of its registered trademarks, and the case was reached in 2019.

In November 2021, Skechers had just reached a settlement with the American shoe brand Nike (NIKE) in three patent lawsuits. Prior to this, the two parties had been arguing about this case for five years.

In the past year, NIKE and Adidas, the world's two biggest shoe brands, have been at war over the issue of technical patent infringement. In June, Adidas launched a federal prosecution case against NIKE, accusing NIKE of infringing many patent rights in its shoe technology and mobile applications (app).

In December last year, NIKE also asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to block the import of several Adidas casual shoes because Adidas was suspected of plagiarizing NIKE's patented knitted fabric Flyknit design technology.

The NPD Group, an American market research organization, also mentioned in a survey report that “customers are paying more and more attention to the professionalism and versatility of sports equipment, and product high-tech has already occupied a higher weight value. . ”

For the full year of 2021, Adidas’s full-year net profit reached 21.234 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 15%. NIKE's net profit for the 2022 fiscal year ending on May 31, 2022 reached US$46.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6%. From the perspective of expenditure, the two big guys also spend about 10% on R&D expenses, which shows that well-known brands attach great importance to product technology. Under the wave of sustainable development in the past two years, various brands of shoes have launched their own "green" brands and made a fuss about environmental protection technology. In September, NIKE released a new clothing processing technology, NikeForward, which uses renewable materials. The RE:COLLECTION product series announced by PUMA (PUMA) is made of recycled cotton and polyester fibers.

Similarly, Li Ning, a leading domestic shoe brand, just launched Olympic champion sports shoes in August, which represents its full introduction of high-tech products on the market during the Olympic Games. In recent years, Li Ning has applied for more than 2,600 patents. It has more than 60 research institutes and more than 200 scientific and technological personnel in more than 20 countries around the world, and will also spend more than 4 billion yuan in R&D funds in five years.

In addition, Anta, which is famous for its sports shoes, is also very willing to invest heavily in product research and development. As early as 2015, Anta established the first exclusive jogging R&D base for shoe testing, design and development in my country's sports industry. At this stage, Anta has more than 1.5 million special running VIPs in China. In early September, Anta announced that it will invest 5 billion yuan in the next 10 years to continue supporting China's road running work, and new product development and innovation are the key.

So far, Hermès has not made an official reply to Skechers’ complaint. After the information was released, Skechers' stock price increased 1.44% to US$35.9 on Tuesday, with a total market value of approximately US$5.6 billion. Hermès' stock price did not change significantly, with a new total market value of 139 billion euros.