For decades, Australian bootmakers have been fighting a $US50 billion giant for the right to call uggs, uggs – and losing.
Uggs: they’re every bit as Australian as Tim Tams and pavlovas.In the mid-2000s, the fleecy boot transitioned from daggy house shoe to in-demand trend donned by Hollywood celebrities, and is broadly recognised around the world as a quintessentially Australian product.
UGG has since become the globe’s biggest seller of the fuzzy boots and is the New York Stock Exchange-listed business’ most lucrative brand, making up around half of its $US4.3 billion in total revenue in the 2024 financial year.But Smith was not the first inventor of ugg boots, and never claimed to be; a handful of local manufacturers had been producing the shoe well before it became a worldwide sensation.
This means that Australian manufacturers have been barred for decades by an American giant from describing and selling ugg boots as ugg boots overseas. “The evidence overwhelmingly supports the proposition that the terms ugh boot, ugboot and ugg boot are interchangeably used to describe a specific style of sheepskin boot and are the first and most natural way in which to describe these goods,” wrote trademark hearings officer Ian Thompson in his decision.
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