Walmart Fights Lawsuit to Keep Selling ‘Copycat’ Vans Shoes

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Walmart Vans Shoes Copycat Lawsuit Overview:

• Who: Shoe company Vans is suing Walmart, saying the retailer is selling “copycat” versions of its shoes.
• Why: Vans says its designs are being infringed upon and wants a judge to block Walmart from selling them. But Walmart says it will lose tens of millions of dollars if it can’t sell them.
• Where: Walmart filed the lawsuit in California federal court.

Walmart is fighting to keep selling Vans look-alike shoes, arguing that taking the shoes off its shelves would cost it “tens of millions of dollars.” 

In a memorandum filed in a California federal court Jan. 24, Walmart Inc. urged a judge to deny Vans’ request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily block the store from selling shoes that it says infringes its designs.

Walmart denies that the shoes are counterfeit in any way and says the injunction would cost it “tens of millions of dollars in a case that does not involve alleged counterfeiting, does not involve identical marks and in which Vans’ claims are weak and the issues of infringement and validity of Vans’ purported trade dress are hotly contested,” the retail giant said. 

It argued that Vans was not being hurt because it had no urgency in the way it filed its motion for an injunction. 

Walmart said Vans filed the motion at least 18 months after Walmart began selling the accused shoes, nine months after Vans engaged in communications with Walmart about the accused shoes and more than one month after filing the complaint.

“Vans is not losing sales, and its reputation is not being diminished. Vans is not suffering any irreparable harm,” Walmart said in the memo.

Walmart Said It Would Lose Sales, Incur ‘Enormous Logistical Costs’ To Remove Shoes From Shelves

In contrast, Walmart said it would lose not only sales, but that there would be “enormous logistical costs” to removing the shoes from shelves from more than 3,500 stores across the United States. 

It said that would cost about $1.4 million in itself, plus the cost of incinerating all the leftover shoes. It would be necessary to incinerate the shoes because they would disintegrate in storage anyway, the company said. 

Vans claimed in its November complaint that “Walmart has truly flooded the market with its cheap, poorly made and confusingly similar knockoff shoes” that use designs Vans has spent millions developing and marketing with high-profile athletes and celebrities.

It claims Walmart started ripping off the designs in 2018, which it only discovered in March 2021, and immediately sent a cease-and-desist letter. It says, since then, Walmart has only added more knockoffs to its roster.

Vans’ suit includes claims of trademark infringement, unfair competition and false designation of origin.

Meanwhile, a female employee is suing Walmart for alleged sex discrimination by forcing its female drivers to wear either company-issued men’s pants or buy and launder their own uniform-compliant pants. 

What do you think of Vans’ lawsuit against Walmart? Let us know in the comments! 

Vans is represented by Tanya L. Greene, Nicholas J. Hoffman and Lucy Jewett Wheatley of McGuireWoods LLP.

The Walmart Vans Knockoff Shoes Lawsuit is Vans Inc. et al. v. Walmart Inc. et al., Case no. 8:21-cv-01876, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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