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Sportswear industry leader Nike sued online reseller StockX today (February 3) in federal court for selling unauthorized images of Nike shoes marking the latest lawsuit over NFTs and digital assets.
Nike’s claim in their complaint is that StockX’s Vault NFTs infringe on Nike’s trademarks and are likely to confuse consumers. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a request for injunctive relief blocking the sale of the NFTs.
In the lawsuit, Nike states that StockX began selling unauthorized NFTs of its trademarked sneakers, telling buyers that they would be able to redeem the non-fungible tokens for physical versions of the shoes “in the near future.”
To date, and according to StockX’s public sales data, over 500 Nike branded NFTs have been sold so far with one selling for $7,500.
The lawsuit states that complaints about the NFTs’ “inflated prices and murky terms of purchase and ownership” and buyers’ doubts about the legitimacy of StockX’s model have hurt Nike’s business reputation.
Nike has its own plans for digital goods. In the complaint, Nike said that it will release “a number of virtual products” later this month in conjunction with the digital art studio RTFKT, which it acquired in December. In 2019, Nike filed for the trademark for CryptoKicks which was the first indication of Nike stepping into the world of digital assets.
StockX was valued at $3.8 billion late last year following their latest round of fundraising and there has been lots of talk and speculation of an IPO to come in 2022.
Representatives for Nike and StockX were not immediately available for comment for this story.
Stay tuned for more updates about this story.
