In November 2021, Vans, Inc. and VF Outdoor, LLC (collectively, “Vans”) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Walmart, Inc. (“Walmart”) and two other entities associated with Walmart: The Doll Maker, LLC and Trendy Trading, LLC. In its complaint, Vans alleged, inter alia, that Walmart had infringed on Vans’ trademarks and trade dress rights when Walmart began selling and promoting “over twenty blatant knockoff versions of Vans shoes . . . through [its] own in-house labels, including ‘Time and Tru,’ ‘Wonder Nation,’ and ‘No Boundaries’” in 2018. In filing its complaint, Vans sought a preliminary injunction based on the alleged notion that Walmart “flooded the market with cheap, low-quality, and confusingly similar shoes that harm Vans’ goodwill and reputation.”
At a hearing on January 24, 2022, however, Walmart implored U.S. District Judge David O. Carter not to grant the preliminary impeachment on Vans’ behalf, claiming not only that issuing such an order would cost Walmart “tens of millions of dollars,” but also that “Vans is not losing sales, . . . its reputation is not being diminished . . . [and it] is not suffering any irreparable harm.” In response to Walmart’s plea to the judge for relief, at a hearing the following month, Vans claimed it was facing an “existential crisis” and that Walmart’s copycat designs were putting Vans’ bottom line in “mortal peril.”
This case is Vans, Inc. et al. v. Walmart, Inc. et al., Case No. 8:21-cv-01876. The images above are provided in Vans’ complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The Complaint can be found at the following link: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxonkoyvx/IP%20VANS%20TRADEMARKS%20complaint-min%20(1).pdf