UGGS Trademark controversy

 

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In 1971, Shane Stedman registered the term Ugh-boot and other terms as trademark with the Australian Trade Mark Registry. These trademarks lapsed due to non-usage, but the cheap uggs were subsequently sold to the American company Deckers Outdoor Corporation, which also registered other trademarks, such as UGG Australia in 1999. By 2003, Deckers had begun a campaign of legal threats against Australian manufacturers and vendors using variants of "ugh boots" to describe their wares.

As a result, Bruce and Bronwyn McDougall, owners of Uggs-N-Rugs, a Western Australia-based manufacturer, started legal action to have ug, ugg and ugh boots removed from the Australian Trademarks Registry. In January 2006, they succeeded in having Deckers's Australian trademark removed, ugg boots for cheap and the words and the names were once again generic terms for sheepskin boots. Ian Thompson, Delegate of the Registrar of Trade Marks, stated: "he evidence overwhelmingly supports the proposition that the terms UGH BOOT(S), UG BOOT(S) and UGG BOOT(S) are interchangeably used to describe a specific style of sheepskin boot and are the first and most natural way in which to describe these goods which should innocently come to the minds of people making this particular style of sheepskin boot.

Deckers Outdoor Corporation decided not to challenge the decision in a higher court, but still hold the trademark in the United States and the European Union and continue to refer to their product as "UGG footwear". They have continued a campaign against other companies referring to products as "ugg", "ugly" or "ugh" boots. They claim that they continually monitor usage of the above names on the World Wide Web, using legal means to shut down any auction or website that they feel infringes their trademark.[6] Deckers have also registered the domain uggsnrugs.com,The website also lists the results of Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy cases taken to an arbitration provider.

The following is what Deckers state at the domain related to Uggs-n-Rugs:

“ Back in 1978, young Australian surfer Brian Smith and his American cohort Doug Jensen introduced the UGG brand sheepskin boots to the United States. In 1978/79 they Trademarked the name, bought their first container of Uggs and began an initial sales trek from San Diego to Santa Cruz. Jensen left the company before the end of the first year, while Smith continued on tenaciously, eventually making his rags to riches story come true.”

The UGG trademark in the United States was first registered in 1984 but has gone through several stylistic changes and changes in ownership until its present state. A stylized version of UGG, Serial number 73492075, was first registered in 1984 by UGG imports, which was eventually acquired by Deckers. This mark was abandoned in 1985. In 1985 they then registered trademark 73571139 buy cheap ugg classic tall which featured a picture of a sheep along with a stylized version of UGG and the words ORIGINAL UGG BOOT AUSTRALIA. This mark was abandoned in 1987.

In 1990 UGG International registered another stylized word mark, 74038440, which was abandoned in 2000.

The actual word mark for UGG, 74668751, was filed in 1995 by UGG Holding and then assigned to Deckers. This mark was abandoned in 2007 when Deckers filed a new series of trademarks including ugg boots and derivations of it with amended classifications.

Owing to USA trademark laws, many companies selling into the USA now market these boots as "sheepskin boots".cheap ugg boots Popular brands are Emu Australia, Warmbat, Uggs-N-Rugs, RocketDog, Bear Paw, Koolaburra and Real Australia.

In 2006 a Save our Aussie Icon campaign had been started through the Internet by a number of Australian Manufacturers following from recent legal proceedings. Also the well-connected Australian Festival USA, Inc, is promoting the Australian made UGG boots and has taken up the fight to get the world know the difference between boots made in China and Australia.[citation needed]