Payless Shoesource to Pay Adidas $304.6 Million
Unfortunately, some parents couldn’t afford name brand sneakers, and before the bootleg game, you had to shop at Payless to get the knock offs. Payless was, and still is well known for their replica’s of popular signature sneakers. It was only a matter of time until one of the sneaker brands sued Payless, and that time has now come. Payless Shoesource was ordered to pay Adidas $304.6 for trademark infringement.
A federal jury in Portland late Monday ordered Payless Shoesource Inc. to pay $304.6 million for willfully infringing on Adidas America Inc.’s three-stripe trademark logo. A nine-person jury in U.S. District Court in Portland unanimously awarded Adidas $30.6 million in actual damages, $137 million in punitive damages and $137 million in Payless profits, according to a transcript of the proceeding. via OL
Check out the entire article here
This could’ve easily been another edition of Say No to Fakes, but it’s all good…for Adidas that is.
Payless has been doing this, so I’m shocked this is just now happening. $304.6M, danggggg that’s a lot of cheese!
Can I PLEASE get 10% Adidas?
did you just say 300 million? im about to read the article. btw my buellers came today g. thanks to you and the crew for the fast shipping. i need a set of neckbreakers lace locks for my buellers now.
im still gone off the 300 mil…….
^No prob and enjoy! The NECKBREAKERS lace locks are still available so get them when your ready.
As for this, I’ll be thinking about all that bread all day long.
i bet the people at adidas is listening to 50 cents i get money on repeat right about now lol
If that’s the case then I think bape should pay nike for using the af1 look…
Wow…that is a ridiculous amount of money…that could probably almost put Payless out of business
nonsense. Adidas has 3stripes not four. How did they win?
dang… i’d be happy with just 1% haha
You know what this is B/S…Im usually all for shutting down those companies that sell fake kicks and things like that but this is just wrong…I know that the age range of the people on this blog range from 15 to mid 30’s….I grew up on Fava Stores which would be an 80’s verison of Payless…My family didn’t have alot of bread to buy the expensive Nike’s so you got the Bike’s and the Kangroos….It wasn’t being humbled, it was just what you could afford. Because of those years of wearing Bike’s, when I started wearing Nike’s, I apreciated them joints sooooooo much more then some kid that’s been rocking them his whole life…To this day I take crazy care of kicks cause I know it could be worse, Im a sneakerhead because of Fava not inspite of it….Companies like Adidas and Nike should release that not every family can pay $90+ for sneakers…Payless, or Walmart, or Kmart, or any other stores that sells Bike’s, or Olo’s or whatever is just a stepping stone..Sometimes we all need to be stop looking down our noses at people and release how fortunite we really are…
Oh, if anyone should have sued it should have been K-Swiss…But they would be right…you can make your verison, you can’t make the same thing…The problem with knock off is they represent that they are real…Any one who shops at Payless knows what they are getting…Okay Im done preaching, sorry.
Dayum, 300 Mill….that’s probably more than Adidas made on their own.
@ C Brown
I can’t even front, I had some Bike’s, Olo’s, even a few pairs of Etonics (i think thats what they were called, if you from the south you should know what im talkin about), and ownin those kicks made me the sneakerfiend i am today, i mean when I see a mofo wearin some played out as j’s or somethin and could care less that they played out a perfectly good pair of quality kicks, it fux with me cuz i know somewhere there’s a kid who would treat them shits like gold. If they wanna go after knock-offs, go after them gas stations and convenient stores who have fake kicks, clothes, cd’s, and music posted up in the place like it’s a fuckin flea market.
SMH. “Doesn’t it feel good to payless”
That was selfish of Adidas. I grew up on payless because sometimes my family couldn’t afford stuff, and believe me none of them were knock offs like the flea market calling it the “real” thing. I agree with C brown and Ether, this just hits a bad string for me actually getting me hell of mad. A bunch of BS!
I agree with Tan and C Brown….Adidas is kinda wrong for this.
They Should give that money to ChARITY
lmao
yea dats alot of bread
ya, idk if adidas shoulda went that hard on payless for this..eeven if they had payless stop makin the kicks and get around 5 mill. it still mighta been too much, but 300 mill. damn, and ya what the hell they have 4 stripes? llike some1 else said take out k-swiss for having 5…or take out bapes for jacking af1’s style. or gourmet for copying jay’s…300 mill…wow smh
this is pretty crazy & a milestone in the shoe industry. this has now opened the flood gates for ANY shoe designer to go after the copy-cats. Women all over the world are now going to be quite F’d when the big name designers go nuts on all the copycats, like Steve Madden for example. (you know what Im taking about if you have a girlfriend/wife.)
Yo, I use to work for the Law firm that represented Adidas in this case. Bill Brewster is one of the top Attorney’s in the south east, I didn’t expect anything less from him or Kilpatrick Stockton. KS, which happens to be the top law firm in Atlanta. So, does this mean that others are now going to sue payless? As far as Adidas winning $300 million, think how much payless has made off of the shoe. Adidas must have waited no less than 5 years to sue them. Says Payless sells over 200 million shoes a year. I’ve always been told to wait to sue somebody. Wait till they make a profit then hit’em hard. Same thing happened to Ja Rule and Def Jam. He was signed to TVT and he signed to def Jam while he was still under contract with TVT. They waited until Ja had a few platinum albums and millions to sue for. TVT was awarded $132 million in that case. That’s what really killed Ja’s career. Def Jam lost all the money they made off of that dude.
Another thing, I don’t know if anyone has ever noticed, but the Nike Blazers have the same exact bottom as the Adidas shell toes. Who jacked who in that case.
I went back and just read all of the comments. This is why the United States has IP laws to begin with. To save your design from others stealing your idea for their own. If it was your company and there was another company selling a product that was undoubtedly a very close resemblance to your product, which you own the patent for, you would go after they ass too. No matter what the product is and who the company is, your patent is your patent. If they would have came to you to lease or share profits for rights to use your patent, then that’s another thing.
The main reason they can’t go after these bootleggers is because the countries the bootlegs are coming from don’t recognize the US’ patent laws. If they did, Nike and others would have been shut all that down. And just to clarify, these big companies are going after the people who sell the bootlegs in the states too. Remember, it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to go after somebody in a store versus some dude selling kicks out of a trunk or a book bag. You can’t look at this case like a big company sued a smaller company, a thief is a thief. And payless clearly infringed on Adidas’ patent…
^Im glad you believe that, Adidas has a patent on usage of three stripes on there sneakers, any close resemblence of that trademark is what Adidas is defending…The issue is that you can’t patent a sneaker or its silhouette..Nike can patent the use of Air technology in the heel, puma can patent its pump technology…this is not the case here. Adidas is bascially arguing that Payless is ONLY able to sell the product because of its likeness to its own product…Im not sure who argued the case for Adidas but as long as the consumer is notified up front that is is not an Adidas product but rather X, case should be over. Payless can not create sneakers using another companies patent technologies, but lets be serious, stripes are not revolutionizing the industry. If that is the case then they should have sued K-swiss years ago….The point that I was making is Payless is not a competitor of Adidas nor are they losing market share because customers are shopping there instead of adidas retail stores…Im sure the average customer of payless is low income family who shop there as an alternative…If Adidas wants this to stop, make an affordable entry level sneaker for placement in the Walmarts of the world…But they would NEVER do this because it would dialute the brand.
payless made a lot of money off of that shoe too!
Design Patents
The patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new and nonobvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The design patent protects only the appearance of an article, but not its structural or functional features. The proceedings relating to granting of design patents are the same as those relating to other patents with a few differences. See current fee schedule for the filing fee for a design application. A design patent has a term of 14 years from grant, and no fees are necessary to maintain a design patent in force. If on examination it is determined that an applicant is entitled to a design patent under the law, a notice of allowance will be sent to the applicant or applicant’s attorney, or agent, calling for the payment of an issue fee. The drawing of the design patent conforms to the same rules as other drawings, but no reference characters are allowed and the drawing should clearly depict the appearance, since the drawing defines the scope of patent protection. The specification of a design application is short and ordinarily follows a set form. Only one claim is permitted, following a set form that refers to the drawing(s).
what fu*ku said nike should sue bape then.
Damn thas pure craziness… that is just wrong
i love when g-roc posts stuff like this. it always gets the best comments.
HORRAY i HATE fake sneakers and every time i seen these shoes they pissed me off. I grew up on payless and was glad for it but my shoes never looked like anything fake they just wasn’t hot i never wanted a pair of shous that looked like another thats just foolish