Source : THE AGE NEWS
Uggs: they’re every bit as Australian as Tim Tams and pavlovas.
Only Tim Tams’ maker Arnott’s was absorbed into a US private equity firm in 2019, and New Zealand has been unrelenting in its claim to have originated the meringue-based dessert.
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.
But for decades, local bootmakers have been part of a protracted David-and-Goliath legal battle with a $US50 billion ($81 billion) American conglomerate over the right to call ugg boots, well, ugg boots.
Earlier this week, sheepskin bootmaker Todd Watts posted a TikTok video declaring that his business, UGG Since 1974, had been forced to change its name in overseas markets following a Chicago lawsuit brought by US apparel and footwear giant Deckers Outdoor Corporation, which owns the UGG trademark in most corners of the world.
“A small business like ours can stand tall even in the face of challenges like this one,” Watts said, imploring viewers to support the business’ new moniker for overseas sales, Since 74. “It isn’t just about boots. It’s about resilience, it’s about community.”
But how did we get here? Why are Australian shoemakers facing legal action for flogging their wares abroad?
Who invented ugg boots?
Versions of this story stretch back to the 1970s, when an Australian surfer called Brian Smith was widely credited with founding the brand now known as UGG.
Smith left his accounting job and went surfing in California, where he managed to sell some ugg boots out of his van to some initially unconvinced Americans. He set up a company, Ugg Holdings Inc, trademarked “UGG” in 25 countries and saw demand for the shoe flourish before selling the company to Deckers in 1995.
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.
The fight over ugg boots has been bubbling for decades. Credit: iStock
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.
“Ugg boots have been around for a century. They were first made in World War I for pilots in their open cockpits,” said Australian Sheepskin Association (ASA) president Stephanie Mortel. She is the general manager of Mortels Sheepskin Factory, founded by her father-in-law Frank, who began making uggs in 1958 after making a pair of fur-lined slippers for his wife Rita who complained of cold feet.
“The narrative has just changed over the years,” Mortel said, likening it to a game of broken telephone.
Uggs: What’s in a name?
At the heart of the issue is this question: do “uggs” refer to a specific brand, or does it refer to a type of sheepskin boot?
It depends where in the world you’re asking this question. Deckers has trademarked UGG in over 100 markets, including the US and Europe. Two regions where it’s not allowed to own this trademark are Australia and New Zealand.
This means that Australian manufacturers have been barred for decades by an American giant from describing and selling ugg boots as ugg boots overseas.
“It stifles our marketing opportunities outside of Australia,” said Mortel. “If they’re searching for ugg boots, they’re not going to find us.”
Deckers, having owned the trademarks to “ugh” and “ugh boots” since 1971 and 1979 and “UGG Australia” since 1999, issued cease and desist letters to several small Australian manufacturers that year. Another set of letters landed in 2004 demanding manufacturers stop using the name, and the following year they banded together to form the ASA.
Verner x Ugg shoe auction during Australian Fashion Week 2024 in Carriageworks, Sydney.Credit: Wendell Teodoro/Getty Images for AFW
Perth-based small business Uggs-N-Rugs, owned by Bronwyn and Bruce McDougall, appealed to trademark regulator IP Australia, which ultimately ruled that ugg boots refers to a generic category and directed it to be removed from the national register of trademarks.
“The evidence overwhelmingly supports the proposition that the terms ugh boot(s), ugboot(s) and ugg boot(s) 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.
While Deckers’ UGG dominates in many markets, it is not the only competition that local manufacturers face: of 246 registered and protected ugg trademarks in Australia, the majority are Chinese-made brands, according to Mortel, with only roughly a dozen that are Australian.
Ugg manufacturer Eddie Oygur and Senator Nick Xenophon don a pair of ugg boots in May 2016.Credit: James Alcock
Sticking the boot in
Deckers’ willingness to take legal action over the years has stifled the business of many small local manufacturers, either directly or indirectly. In 2016, Sydney-based small business Australian Leather was hit with legal action after selling 12 pairs of ugg boots online to US customers, and lost. Owner Eddie Oygur was ordered to pay over $3 million in penalties and legal costs.
“If the French can protect the use of the word champagne, the Greeks the use of the word feta, then surely Australia can protect the use of the word Ugg for Australian manufacturers,” then-South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon said at the time after publicly campaigning for Oygur.
Despite reclaiming the name “uggs” for boot makers in Australia, the McDougalls have since closed Uggs-N-Rugs.
Meanwhile, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has penalised some traders – once in 2011 and again in 2018 – for falsely claiming their Chinese-made uggs were crafted in Australia.
Deckers-produced UGGs are manufactured in China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, and use some synthetic fabrics in some of their products.
UGG Since 1974 is simply the latest company to be hit by litigation from the US apparel and footwear giant.
ASX-listed retail company Accent Group, the official distributor for the Deckers-owned UGG brand in Australia, and Deckers’ legal representation K&L Gates, did not respond to requests for comment.
“It was Australian people that took the product to the US,” said Mortel. “It’s just business, it’s not personal for Deckers. But morally, it sucks.”
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