News briefs – Page 27
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News briefs
German Parliament sets limits for Click & Meet and Click & Collect
The lower chamber of the German Parliament has decided to raise the minimum permissible level for the non-essential retailers’ Click & Meet services (visiting the stores by appointment only) for areas of the country where 150 out of 100,000 residents are found to be contaminated by Covid-19. If the level ...
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News briefs
Peloton says its Tread+ treadmill is safe
Peloton has issued a statement to refute the claims by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) about the safety of the Peloton Tread+ treadmill following a series of incidents with the equipment. A child died in March while using the Tread+, as previously reported by SGI Europe. Peloton said ...
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News briefs
Bleyer files for insolvency
Bleyer, a German producer of sports shoes for special activities, has filed for temporary insolvency because of cash problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The company, which employs 21 people, and its web store will continue to operate like before, hoping that the current restrictions on sports and dance events ...
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News briefs
Dish sues Peloton, Lululemon and Icon Health & Fitness over streaming technology
Connected fitness remains a hot issue in terms of intellectual property rights. Dish Network Corp. and its Sling TV division are suing Peloton Interactive, Lululemon Athletica and Icon Health & Fitness for allegedly infringing five patents for technology that improves the quality of video content on the internet through multi-bitrate ...
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News briefs
Puma reportedly agrees not to use the Tokyo 2020 mark
Puma has reportedly settled a dispute with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), which claims to own trademarks for the Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 labels, with the right to use them for licensing and sponsorship agreements. The committee and Team USA had filed a suit against ...
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News briefs
Fitbit and Garmin are cleared of two out of four patent infringement charges
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has confirmed that Garmin and Fitbit are not infringing on two patents registered by Philips, concluding that they are invalid, but it did not overturn two other patents over which the Dutch electronics company is still in litigation with the two suppliers of wearables. ...
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News briefs
FESI launches new Covid-19 survey
FESI has launched a third survey to assess the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sporting goods industry. It is open to any sporting goods company operating in Europe, with a tentative deadline of April 28 for the replies. A specific section is devoted to winter sports. FESI’s previous ...
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News briefs
Alibaba settles with Chinese anti-trust authorities
The Alibaba Group has agreed to make it easier for merchants to do business with it, without preventing them from using other platforms, as part of a series of ”comprehensive rectifications” demanded by Chinese anti-trust regulators, which charged it of abusing its dominant market position. It will nevertheless have to ...
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News briefs
Patent office finds Timberland’s iconic boot design too generic
The U.S. Patent Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board denied a bid by VF Corp. to register the design of Timberland’s iconic Yellow Boot, concluding that it lacks sufficient acquired distinctiveness. The board noted that there was no evidence that competitors were trying to intentionally copy the boot’s trade dress, ...
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News briefs
Icon sues Peloton once more
Icon Health & Fitness has filed its fourth suit against Peloton Interactive in the U.S. federal court in Delaware, where two other suits filed last year are still pending. This time, Icon is attacking the Auto Follow feature of Peloton’s new Bike+ model, which automatically adjusts its resistance to match ...
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News briefs
Nike obtains a recall of MSCHF’s Jesus Shoes and “Satan Shoes”
Nike said that the MSCHF Product Studio has agreed to voluntarily recall the “Satan Shoes” it has developed with a rapper as well as the Jesus Shoes it had launched in 2019 as part of a legal settlement. Both shoe models were unauthorized alterations of Nike’s Air Max 97. According ...
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News briefs
U.S. boycott of Beijing Olympics still up in the air
It remains unclear whether the U.S. will boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, either alone or in a coalition with other countries. Last month the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, outlined the reasons, saying: “China uses coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in Hong Kong, undercut democracy ...
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News briefs
Former Nike manager pleads guilty in $1.5m fraud case
A former marketing executive of Nike in charge of temporary retail venues until 2018, Errol Andam, admitted at a U.S. Attorney General office that he had made false statements and committed wire fraud and money laundering through various schemes that defrauded the company of $1.49 million, according to The Oregonian. ...
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News briefs
South and North Korea submit joint Korean bid for 2032 Olympics
Seoul’s metropolitan government has notified the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of its bid to co-host the 2032 Summer Olympics with Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. According to a report byYonhap, South Korea’s news agency, Seoul’s metropolitan government said on April 1st that a written notification of the bid had ...
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News briefsNike obtains a ban on Satan sneakers
Supporting Nike’s position in the case, a federal district judge in Brooklyn moved quickly to issue a temporary restraining order against the MSCHF Design Studio, forbidding it from fulfilling any orders for the modified “Satan Shoes” version of its Air Max 97. The defendants in the case said they had ...
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News briefs
Peloton wins fees in a sordid patent case
A U.S. court has awarded $4,299,163 to Peloton Interactive to cover attorneys’ fees and other expenses it incurred in a sordid patent infringement suit brought in 2016 by VR Optics. The whole thing started when Peloton hired the Villency Design Group (VDG) in 2012 to design its well-known interactive stationary ...
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News briefs
Nike sues over a satanic Air Max
Nike is sueing a Brooklyn company, the MSCHF Product Studio, which has sold a lot of 666 pairs of altered Air Max 97 shoes with satanic-themed detailing, embroidery and a drop of human blood on the insole. MSCHF collaborated with a rapper, Lil Nas X on the customized Air Max ...
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News briefs
Sport England promotes the return to sports
Sport England has hired Cake, the sports marketing arm of the Havas advertising and PR agency. The public body – established by Royal Charter in 1996 to “give everyone in England the chance to benefit from sport and physical activity” – has for its immediate priority the #ReturnToPlay campaign, which ...
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News briefs
BSI calls for a revised German Supply Chain Act
In a public statement, the German Sporting Goods Industry Association (BSI) has criticized a German government bill that would force German companies with more than 1,000 people to comply with human rights in their supply chain. It targets the textile, electronics, chemical, pharmaceutical, food and automotive industries and is intended ...
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News briefs
Munich court opens case against 21sportsgroup’s CEO
Judicial authorities in Munich are reportedly carrying out an investigation for fraud against Georg Kofler, a German entrepreneur who was appointed CEO of 21sportsgroup after acquiring a stake of 40 percent in the German multi-channel sports retailer along with other media investors in mid-2018. Kofler is said to have promised ...
