Nike, Inc. v. Adidas, AG, No. 14-1719 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseNike’s 011 patent, entitled “Article of footwear having a textile upper,” relates to the “upper” component, which has the general shape of a foot and forms a void for receiving the foot that is accessed using the ankle opening. The upper is made from a knitted textile using any number of warp knitting or weft knitting processes and consists of “a single material element that is formed to exhibit a unitary (i.e., one-piece) construction.” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a petition filed by Adidas and instituted inter partes review. Nike moved to amend, requesting cancellation of claims 1–46 and proposing substitute claims 47–50. The Board granted Nike’s motion to cancel claims 1–46, but denied the motion as to the substitute claims because Nike failed to meet its burden of establishing patentability of substitute claims 47–50. The Federal Circuit vacated the finding of obviousness and remanded; whether the claims are patentable requires a factual analysis that must be done by the Board in the first instance.
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