Nike has accused three of their previous employees, who held of role of senior shoe designers, of stealing ideas and taking them to Adidas.
Marc Dolce, Mark Miner and designer director Denis Dekovic supposedly consulted with Adidas while still working for the giant corporation. Nike has even gone on to say that the trio consulted future plans in regards to their sportswear, running and soccer lines, that has been proposed for the next few years to come.
In September it had been reported that Adidas purchased a new footwear studio in Brooklyn, which is supposedly a knockoff of Nike’s own design lab where the trio worked. Of course everyone has a non-competition agreement, and if this is the case then the three are liable for breaching it.
More recently Denis Devkovic took to his personal Facebook page to address and dismiss claims. He wrote,
“We have a tremendous amount of respect for our colleagues and Nike and would never do anything to harm them… We did not take trade secrets or intellectual property when we departed in September”.
Despite claims that they have been loyal to Nike, it does look quite suspicious. Also when it comes to those type of agreement contracts its quite hard to say what is your own original idea, and what might just be a development of those ideas, or inspiration. Only time will tell though, when their agreement is up with Nike, and Adidas start producing new designs.
All in all, Nike are claiming at least $10 million in damages, if they expect this from their ex employees, then we want a Nike contract too.
Words: Stephen Paul
