SKECHERS USA Takes Eliya To Take Court For Infringing Patent

SKECHERS USA, Inc. SKX revealed that it filed a lawsuit against Eliya, Inc., which makes Bernie Mey footwear, for infringing its product line. According to the company, it sought both compensatory, as well as, punitive damages and injunctive relief for infringing on multiple patents and the unique trade dress.

SKECHERS said Eliya breached a previous settlement deal between them in respect of Sketch-Air by SKECHERS footwear design. The lawsuit alleged that Eliya was selling the infringed products as part of its collection of Bermie Mey Gummies.

The company's COO and CFO David Weinberg commented, "SKECHERS has invested tremendous resources into designing, developing, advertising and patenting our Skech-Air by SKECHERS product lines and has built them into a name and look globally recognized and synonymous with SKECHERS.We confronted Eliya about the Bernie Mev Gummies styles last fall when we saw them advertised and they represented to us that they made no sales of the infringing products in the United States and would not do so."

He continued, "However, the infringing Bernie Mev footwear is now in domestic sales channels where the SKECHERS products are sold, and we believe this is impacting our brand image and sales. Considering our investment in the Skech-Air by SKECHERS product lines, including national advertising campaigns, we will not allow anyone to infringe on our valuable intellectual properties. We plan on taking similar action against any company that develops any products that infringe on the patents and trade dress of the Skech-Air by SKECHERS product line or any of our other popular product lines, and any retailer that sells the Bernie Mev Gummies style."

The stock traded 1.26 percent down on Wednesday.