Background
Deckers Outdoor Corporation, the maker of UGG boots, sued Last Brand, Inc. — which operates the direct-to-consumer fashion retailer Quince — in 2023, claiming Quince’s “Australian Shearling Mini Boot” infringed U.S. Design Patent No. D927,161 covering the ornamental design of the footwear upper of the UGG Classic Ultra Mini Boot. Design patents, unlike utility patents, protect the ornamental appearance of a product rather than how it functions. Deckers argued Quince’s boot was nearly identical in look and feel to its protected UGG design.
Quince, founded in 2018 on the promise of offering “dupe” versions of luxury goods at radically lower prices, defended on the grounds that the boot design was either functional (and therefore unpatentable), indefinite due to ambiguous patent drawings, or obvious in light of a crowded marketplace of virtually identical shearling ankle boots that predated the patent. Judge Martínez-Olguín presided over a four-day jury trial, and the jury deliberated for over two hours before returning its verdict.
Note: An earlier ruling in this case, issued May 2026, limited Deckers to certain damages theories and excluded evidence of willful infringement. See our prior coverage of that pre-trial ruling.
The Court’s Holding
The jury returned a split verdict: it found that Quince’s Australian Shearling Mini Boot did infringe Design Patent D927,161 under the design-patent infringement test (whether an ordinary observer, familiar with prior art, would find the overall designs substantially similar). However, the same jury also found that the patent is invalid — and invalidity defeats any infringement claim, leaving Deckers with no remedy.
The grounds for invalidity centered primarily on obviousness: Quince presented evidence of a crowded field of shearling ankle boot designs that preceded Deckers’ patent, arguing that D927,161’s design would have been obvious to a designer of ordinary skill in the art. The jury agreed. Quince also introduced evidence of functional design features — structural seams and reinforcement elements inherent to sheepskin boot construction — to support arguments that portions of the design are dictated by function and thus not protectable. The court permitted Quince to introduce evidence of widespread similar boot designs in the “dupe culture” market, which strengthened the crowded-field obviousness argument.
With the patent invalid, the infringement finding is moot: Deckers receives no damages and no injunction.
Key Takeaways
- A design patent is only as strong as its claims are non-obvious: in a crowded design field where many prior products look similar, a jury can conclude that the patented design is an obvious variant of what came before, even if the defendant copied it.
- The “dupe culture” fashion market, where affordable brands intentionally offer near-identical products to luxury originals, presents a genuine design-patent enforcement challenge — competitors are more likely to have prior-art arguments the more broadly the market has converged on a common aesthetic.
- Infringement and validity are decided separately: a jury can find both infringement and invalidity simultaneously, as happened here. Invalidity always trumps infringement — no valid patent, no remedy.
- Functional elements of a design (e.g., structural seams on a shearling boot) are not protectable by design patent; they can contribute to an obviousness or non-ornamentality defense.
Why It Matters
The UGG brand is one of the most widely recognized footwear trademarks in the world, and this trial attracted attention precisely because Deckers has long relied on a combination of trademark and design-patent protection to police the avalanche of UGG-style boots in the market. The jury’s invalidation of D927,161 is a significant blow: it removes one design-patent weapon from Deckers’ enforcement arsenal and signals that in crowded aesthetic markets — where dozens of companies all independently converged on the same basic shearling ankle boot silhouette — juries are willing to find design patents obvious.
For the broader design-patent community, the verdict underscores the difference between “my competitor copied my product” (which may be true) and “my patent is valid” (which requires something more than a popular, distinctive aesthetic). Fashion companies pursuing design-patent strategies in crowded style categories should take note: the same market success that makes a design worth protecting can become evidence that the design was obvious.