Nike, a sportswear apparels behemoth, is engaging in a court battle with StockX, an online resale platform. The court battle revolves around an unlicensed non-fungible token (NFT).
The company has been actively looking into the blockchains. Last year, it was reported that Nike had filed a trademark application to use its logo in the virtual world.
Nike files lawsuit against online reseller
A report from Reuters stated that the company had filed a lawsuit against an online reseller. The case was filed in a New York Federal Court. Nike is demanding that the reseller pay the company for the damages and stop the sale of these NFTs.
StockX started selling the NFT sneakers in January. The company also promised NFT buyers that they would have a chance to redeem their NFTs for physical sneakers in the future.
The lawsuit filed by Nike is in a 590-page document that states StockX sold around 500 NFT sneakers with the Nike logo. Nike stated that the NFT sneakers were sold at very high prices and added that including the logo on these NFTs had affected the brand’s reputation.
Despite the legal dispute, the StockX NFT sneakers are still available for purchase online. The company has an estimated valuation of $3.8 billion, and this sneakers collection is dubbed “The Vault.
Nike noted that while NFTs presented a chance for brands to interact, some people in the market were attempting to “usurp the goodwill of some of the most famous trademarks in the world and use those trademarks without authorization to market their virtual products and generate ill-gotten profits.”
Brands and NFTs
Nike recently acquired RTFKT, a NFT art studio. The acquisition came when many brands were looking towards NFTs as a marketing tool. Nike is not the only major brand engaging in a lawsuit concerning NFTs. Big brands and celebrities have been entangled in such cases before. Miramax, a film production company, filed a lawsuit against the company’s director for selling NFTs of a movie. The company stated that this was a copyright infringement.
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