After 20 years of legal battling, a Spanish sports magazine, Diffusion Sport, reports that Nike has finally made peace with Spanish users of a Nike trade name that has nothing to do with the renowned American brand. A difficult co-existence between the two Nikes may now come to an end, but neither Nike International nor Kuipers Disaway, the two parties involved in the current lawsuit, has actually revealed any details of the deal. A Nike spokesman was not available for comment.
Nike’s expensive battle to register its trade name in Spain started out against Cidesport (Comercial Ibérica Exclusivas Deportivas), a Spanish vendor of socks and sports apparel and a former distributor for Nike in the country. While Cidesport was distributing Nike in 1985, it acquired a second license to distribute a Nike brand belonging to a Barcelona-based company, which was registered back in 1932. The brand was revived by Cidesport and extended to cover sportswear before Nike International registered its own trade name – in order to use as leverage against the U.S. giant.
Once the 1992 Olympics were on the Spanish agenda, Nike dropped Cidesport and didn’t compensate the company for lost business. It found it was unable to register its trademark for sportswear and sued Cidesport for trademark infringement in the USA. To strike back Cidesport sued Nike International in Spain and asked to have the American company’s registration revoked there. The Spanish Supreme Court ruled that the two companies would have to divide their use of the trademark, with Nike International marketing the footwear and Cidesport the sportswear, although Nike could sell clothes with the Swoosh logo.
Court action between the two continued until 2005 when Nike finally won back the right from Cidesport to sell Nike apparel in Spain on the grounds of consumer confusion and the fact that Cidesport was benefiting from Nike’s worldwide reputation. It was deemed that the secondary Nike brand should be canceled from the registry for lack of real and effective use. Instead of ending there, the story was complicated by the arrival of Kuipers Disaway, a company that apparently inherited Cidesport’s rights to the trademark.
Meanwhile, legal action was also taken and won in China by Nike against a subcontractor of the Spanish company, which manufactured its Nike branded goods there. The U.S. giant was a registered trademark in China and the Chinese court ruled that not only the selling but also the manufacturing of Cidesport’s goods breached trademark laws, even though the company intended to sell the goods in Spain.
Kuipers and Nike have been throwing accusations at each other ever since. Kuipers was accused by Nike International of acting as a cover for Cidesport, while Kuipers continues to accuse Nike of legal harassment, and alleged that Nike put pressure on its distributors to end deals with the company. Kuipers currently licenses the Nike trade name from Muswellbrook, an Irish company that is mysteriously linked to Cidesport. Muswellbrook bought the rights to the Spanish Nike trade name in 1999 from Flora Bertrand, mother of Lorenzo and Carlos Rosal, who own Cidesport. But both Muswellbrook and Kuipers are owned by former executives of Cidesport.
