Dawgs and parent company Double Diamond Distribution, Ltd. reported that Crocs must return to court to face allegations that it violated federal false advertising laws by promoting claims that it manufactures its shoes with “patented” materials.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on October 3, 2024, sent the case back to the Federal Court in Colorado for further proceedings after finding that Crocs’ promotional claims since its founding more than 20 years ago are subject to the Lanham Act’s prohibition against false and deceptive advertising.
In the opinion authored by Circuit Judge Reyna, the Court noted that “Crocs conceded in its briefing, and at oral argument before this court, that its statements that Croslite was covered by a patent are false,” according to Dawg’s statement.
“This decision is not just a win for us, but for fair competition and for the millions of people who have been harmed by Crocs’s fabricated claims and intentional false advertising,” said Steve Mann, CEO of Double Diamond Distribution. “Crocs has successfully killed off many of its competitors with forever-war litigation, and it has been trying to bury our family-owned business for nearly 20 years. We are laser-focused on making this trial the beginning of the end of Crocs’s audacious lies.”
In July 2022, Crocs announced that it had attained a judgment of infringement against Dawgs and Double Diamond Distribution tied to the sales of shoes that resembled Crocs’ Mammoth line of clogs in a legal battle over patents that began in 2006. At the time, Crocs said it received over $6 million in damages against the companies.
Image courtesy Crocs
