Posted by Authored by Victor Chahin
Companies protect the look of their products all the time. The legal term for that look is “trade dress.” But Last Brand, Inc. d/b/a Quince is seeking to turn what Deckers Outdoor Corp., the maker of UGG boots, calls intellectual property enforcement into an antitrust case.
Quince’s First Amended Complaint alleges that Deckers tried to monopolize the market for sheepskin footwear by filing a whopping 176 trade dress lawsuits. The theory is not that Deckers was too successful in court. It is that Deckers filed so many suits, and made them so expensive to fight, that winning was beside the point. The question is whether that amounts to monopolization or simply an aggressive company protecting its most recognizable product.
Background
Two legal concepts drive the dispute. The first is trade dress, which protects the look and feel of a product when that design identifies its source. Unregistered product-design trade dress is difficult to establish because the owner must show that the design is nonfunctional, non-generic, and associated in consumers’ minds with a single source. First Amended Complaint ¶ 115; Last Brand, Inc. v. Deckers Outdoor Corporation, 26-cv-01540, Dkt. 32 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 17, 2026).
The second is the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. Filing a lawsuit is generally protected by the First Amendment right to petition the government, so litigation ordinarily cannot be the basis for an antitrust claim. The exception is “sham litigation,” where lawsuits are not genuine attempts to win but are instead used to hurt a competitor through the cost and burden of litigation. The Supreme Court says the suit must be “objectively baseless in the sense that no reasonable litigant could realistically expect success on the merits.” Professional Real Estate Investors v. Columbia Pictures, 508 U.S. 50, 60 (1993).
Quince’s Claims
Quince alleges that Deckers filed 176 trade dress suits between 2014 and 2026, not to win, but to make defending them more expensive than the accused products were worth. First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 1, 4, 17–18. About 57% ended in settlements or consent judgments, and Quince alleges Deckers has never won a contested merits ruling on a trade dress claim. Id. ¶¶ 19–20.
Quince also has some recent ammunition. In October 2025, it defeated Deckers on summary judgment on two trade dresses, and a jury later invalidated Deckers’ design patent.
A Reach in More Ways Than One
Deckers’ response is straightforward: losing a lawsuit does not make it a sham. The question is whether the claims were reasonable when filed. Deckers points to roughly 70 permanent injunctions involving one boot design, a jury verdict in its favor in another case, and an earlier ruling in the Quince litigation recognizing that its prior suits had reached the merits. Mot. to Dismiss p. 4:11-21; Last Brand, Inc. v. Deckers Outdoor Corporation, 26-cv-01540, Dkt. 19 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2026).
Deckers settlements are no easier to interpret. Quince sees the 57% settlement rate as evidence that defendants settled because fighting Deckers was too expensive. Deckers points out that settlements are how most lawsuits end. Quince’s own complaint acknowledges that a consent decree “is the product of negotiation and compromise.” First Amended Complaint ¶ 20 n.5.
Then there is the antitrust problem. Quince must show harm to competition, not merely harm to itself. Its biggest claimed injury is the roughly $1.8 million it spent defending an earlier lawsuit brought by Deckers. Id. ¶ 113. Deckers argues that one company’s legal bills are not competitive harm. Mot. to Dismiss p. 13:25-28; p. 14:1-4; (citing Huawei Techs. v. Samsung Elecs., 340 F. Supp. 3d 934, 956 (N.D. Cal. 2018)). Quince says the damage is broader: Deckers’ lawsuits allegedly pulled competing products from the market and raised costs for rivals generally. First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 100, 103.
Quince also must show a dangerous probability that Deckers will achieve monopoly power. Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan, 506 U.S. 447, 456 (1993). That gets tricky when Quince defines the market as “sheepskin casual footwear” and alleges, only “on information and belief,” that Deckers holds a 50% share. First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 84, 96. Deckers calls the market definition gerrymandered. Mot. to Dismiss p. 3:18-23.
Takeaway
The case turns on a narrower question. When does using intellectual property litigation to protect a product become anticompetitive conduct under antitrust law?
Quince references Deckers’ 176 lawsuits. But 176 lawsuits do not, by themselves, make those suits sham litigation. Quince still has to show that the claims were objectively baseless, that Deckers harmed competition rather than simply Quince, and that Deckers posed a dangerous probability of achieving monopoly power.
Victor B. Chahin represents clients in the enforcement and protection of their intellectual property rights, with a focus on trademark and copyright litigation. Victor received a Juris Doctor from Chicago-Kent College of Law in May 2025, where he developed his skills in oral advocacy as an active member of the nationally ranked Chicago-Kent Trial Advocacy Team.