While online resale platform StockX continues to claim that Nike has a fundamental misunderstanding of NFT, as it originally argued, the company defended its anti-counterfeiting measures in response to Nike’s amended complaint. In a June 6 filing, StockX said the platform has one of the strongest authentication processes in the industry and has invested millions of dollars in fighting the spread of counterfeit products. Nike, which joined the Metaverse earlier this year, had alleged in a lawsuit in February that StockX was infringing on trademark rights through a service called Vault NFTS.
“Nike’s lawsuit is nothing more than a baseless and misleading attempt to interfere with an innovative and efficient method to trade in current culture, part of the increasingly popular and lawful secondary market for the sale of its sneakers and other goods,” StockX said in the new filing. In its original response in April, StockX said each company has a different definition of NFTs and Nike has a fundamental misunderstanding of the different functions they can serve. Now StockX wonders why Nike waited until May to bring the allegations instead of presenting them in the initial lawsuit.
The reseller pointed out that all products in its marketplace are physically inspected and authenticated before being shipped to buyers. It also noted that counterfeit items may pass inspection, but its refund policy in cases where counterfeits are found denies knowingly or intentionally trading in such goods. “StockX looks forward to defending its reputation and to understanding why Nike, which once sought to collaborate in combating counterfeits, now seeks to anticompetitively undermine StockX’s business model for making the secondary market safer and more efficient for consumers,” the reseller said in a statement.
