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The Zest

Dupes on Trial: What the UGG and Lululemon Fights Mean for Small Brands

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"Someone is selling a cheaper copy of my product and calling it a dupe. Can I stop them?" Sometimes, but the look of a product on its own is hard to protect. Two of the most closely watched dupe fights show why. UGG's parent company spent three years suing Quince over lookalike boots and lost. Lululemon's case against Costco ended with no ruling on the merits. If brands that size struggle, a small brand needs a plan before the copies show up.

What happened in the UGG case

Deckers Outdoor, which owns UGG, sued Last Brand, Inc., the company behind Quince, in federal court in Northern California in June 2023. It said Quince's Australian Shearling Mini Boot copied the UGG Classic Ultra Mini, and it sued on two main theories: trade dress, which is the overall look of a product, and a design patent.

The trade dress claims went first. On October 2, 2025, the court held that the Classic Ultra Mini and Tasman trade dresses were generic, meaning too common in footwear to point to one company. Quince showed at least 14 competitors selling similar boots and nine selling similar slippers. Deckers argued that the copies only arrived after UGG made the style popular, and the court found no legal authority for that argument. In April 2026, Deckers dropped its remaining trade dress claims, leaving only the design patent.

The case went to a jury in June 2026. Before trial, Deckers asked the court to keep the word "dupe" out of the courtroom, and the court said no. On June 15, the jury found that Quince's boot infringed the design patent, and also that the patent was invalid. An invalid patent can't support a win, so judgment went to Quince. On September 9, 2026, the court denied Deckers' request for a new trial.

What happened in the Lululemon case

Lululemon sued Costco in federal court in Los Angeles on June 27, 2025. The products at issue resembled Lululemon's Scuba hoodies, Define jackets and ABC pants, and the claims covered trade dress, design patents, trademarks and unfair competition. Some of the Costco products had been promoted online as "dupes."

The case was terminated in August 2026 on undisclosed terms. No court ever decided who was right.

So two of the most watched dupe cases produced one loss and one quiet ending. Neither gave brands a rule they can count on.

Why trade dress is so hard to win for a product's design

Trade dress can protect the look of a product, but the Supreme Court set a high bar for product design in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc. in 2000. A product's design is protectable "only upon a showing of secondary meaning." In plain terms, you have to prove that customers who see the design think of one specific company, not just a type of product. The Court's reasoning: people assume a product's shape is there to make it useful or appealing, not to tell them who made it.

That's the first hurdle. Here are the others.

If your trade dress isn't registered, federal law puts the burden on you to prove the design isn't functional. The UGG court faulted Deckers for not dealing with aesthetic functionality, the idea that a design can't be protected if giving one company exclusive rights would put competitors at a real disadvantage.

And success can work against you. If a design becomes the standard look for a whole category, it stops pointing to one source. That's what sank UGG's trade dress.

For a small brand, the math is hard. Secondary meaning is usually built through years of sales, advertising and press. A copy can show up in a few weeks.

Design patents: faster, but not bulletproof

The Supreme Court's own answer in Samara was that a producer can usually protect a distinctive design "by securing a design patent or a copyright for the design." A design patent covers the ornamental look of a product, not how it works, and it lasts 15 years from the date it's granted.

Timing matters. In the U.S., showing or selling a design publicly generally starts a one-year clock to file. Wait too long and the right is gone.

The UGG case adds the second lesson: a design patent has to survive a validity challenge. Deckers proved infringement and still lost, because the jury found the patent invalid. A design patent filed early, on a design that's actually new, is a much stronger tool than one filed on a style that's already everywhere. Design patents are their own filing, separate from a trademark application, with their own process.

The most reliable protection most small brands have isn't the shape of the product. It's the name and the logo. A competitor can often sell a similar-looking product legally. Selling it under your name, or a name close enough to confuse people, is a different problem.

A federal registration makes that protection much easier to use, and it's what gets you into tools like Amazon Brand Registry. It only helps if the name can hold up, which is why some names are far easier to own than others.

Careful with "dupe" in your own marketing

The other side of this matters too. If you're the smaller brand selling the affordable alternative, calling your product "the Lululemon dupe" puts someone else's trademark in your marketing.

Federal law prohibits marketing that's likely to confuse people about a product's affiliation, connection, sponsorship or approval. Baker Botts suggests that brands comparing themselves to another brand limit references to what's reasonably necessary to identify the product being compared, and avoid presentation that suggests endorsement or affiliation, especially in influencer campaigns. In the Costco case, the "dupe" posts came from influencers Lululemon alleged Costco had paid.

Lululemon has also registered LULULEMON DUPE as a trademark, and it secured DUPE SWAP in August 2025. Baker Botts notes those filings' significance isn't yet clear. Either way, it shows at least one big brand is paying close attention to how its name gets paired with that word.

If you're building a product brand and want the name locked down before the copies show up, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the attorney (opens in a new tab)

(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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