It also ruled that the term was not subject to the “doctrine of foreign equivalents,” a legal guideline in the United States that says foreign words for categories of items cannot be trademarked, and that Mr. Oygur had willfully infringed on Deckers’s trademark. Mr. Oygur challenged the decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In court documents filed ahead of the appeal, his lawyers argued that the U.S. District Court had used the wrong standards to judge whether something was generic. In its own documents, Deckers countered that the judge had used the right test and cited survey evidence that most U.S. consumers recognize Ugg as a brand. Tom Garcia, the chief administrative officer of Deckers, said in a statement before the verdict that the company believed there was no merit to the appeal.

Source: New York Times May 10, 2021 06:01 UTC