Deckers Brands, owner of Hoka, Ugg and Teva brands, has reportedly lost its lawsuit against Quince after a jury found the design patent covering the Ugg Ultra Mini Boot invalid.
After a four-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the jury issued a verdict in Quince’s favor on Monday, June 15, finding that Quince’s Australian Shearling Mini Boot infringed U.S. Patent No. D927,161, but that the claimed design was invalid. Because the patent was invalidated, Quince avoided all liability and financial damages.
The jury reached the verdict after deliberating for over two hours. A juror noted to Bloomberg that the design drawings lacked adequate reproduction detail and featured only functional components, such as seams.
Quince’s counsel, Xinlin Li Morrow of Morrow Ni LLP, said the verdict “vindicated Quince’s mission and consumer rights.”
The trial was seen as among the first to tackle the legality of “dupes,” or “knockoffs,” of popular products advertised as low-cost equivalents to their brand-name counterparts. Quince, which specializes in dupes, stated its mission “is to create products of equal or greater quality than the leading luxury brands at a much lower price.”
“This case was never about an ankle boot,” Quince Head of Legal Joel Dion said in a statement. “It was about whether one company can claim ownership of a common, category-wide design and use the courts to push out anyone who competes with it.”
Deckers Brands sued Quince in 2023 over allegedly copying its design patent covering the Ugg Classic Ultra Mini boot. Quince denied the allegations and argued the patent was invalid.
Deckers had previously argued that Quince also violated its trademark rights. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin dismissed Deckers’ trademark-related claims last year after finding the Ugg design was too generic for trademark protection.
Image courtesy Ugg
