Global
No. 1 Re-sell Platform Brand ‘StockX’
Re-sell refers
to purchasing popular items such as limited edition products and then reselling
at a higher price. Clothing, bags, and sneakers are mainly traded, and it is
also used as a financial technology for the MZ generation. Recently, NIKE
sneakers, which were produced in collaboration with Dior, Off-White, Sakai, and
Supreme were released and traded at resell prices in several times higher than
the regular price as soon as they were released.
▲ stockx.com
StockX
announces sale of ‘Vault NFT’ based on Blockchain
In January
of this year, StockX started selling Vault NFT on its website and app. Vault
NFT is a kind of investment product that owns digital sneakers rather than
physical sneakers, and refers to tokens that can be exchanged for real products
if you want to have them after purchase. When StockX launched the Vault NFT, it
promoted the benefits of digitally owning a popular new product, saving fees
and space in your closet. Consumers also had high expectations for a new
platform incorporating the existing metaverse technology. However, several
problems have been raised since release. Due to the excessive interest in Vault NFT, Nike Dunk Low
sneakers with a regular price of $100, also called killer whales, traded for an
average of $809, and the highest price soared to $3,500. It has also been
criticized as fraud by consumers due to the unclear terms of purchase
agreements for NFTs and physical transactions and the issue that commodity
exchange options are still not available.
Nike
sued StockX for damages
Most of
the products StockX registered with Vault NFT were Nike products. Nike criticized
StockX for causing confusion among consumers as if it had signed a contract
with Vault NFT and officially sold StockX even though it had no relationship
with the company, and lowered the credibility of its products with excessive
prices and unclear purchasing methods. It also claimed that Nike was blatantly
free-riding by using and selling Nike's product images and trademarks without
permission. In fact, many articles were found on SNS that many people mistook
for Nike genuine NFT. Currently, the word ‘100% Authentic’ has been replaced
with ‘StockX Verified’ in StockX. For these reasons, Nike filed a lawsuit last
month in the United States District Court in Manhattan, New York, seeking a ban
on the use of the trademark, compensation for damages, and cessation of sales
against StockX. For reference, Nike announced in December last year that they
were planning to launch a Nike virtual product by acquiring Artifact, a
blockchain metaverse startup. As the problem with Vault NFT grew, Nike was also
concerned about damaging the image of the virtual product to be released, so it
is thought that they responded quickly.
Intellectual
property disputes over NFTs, what are the consequences?
As the
NFT market grows, various problems are also emerging. This is because there are
cases in which the original owner suffers damage by registering and selling
other people’s creative works without permission as NFTs. The possibility of disputes is very
high because the NFT issuer only sells the NFT ownership without holding the IP
rights such as trademarks or copyrights of the original owner. In addition,
there is a high possibility that sufficient legal protection against damage to
NFT buyers will not be provided. There is no clear precedent for this, so this
lawsuit between Nike and StockX is thought to be a representative case of IP
rights disputes related to NFTs. If it is determined that StockX's Vault NFT
has infringed Nike's trademarks, they’ll offer compensation for damages or
remedies. It will be interesting to see what kind of judgment the court will
make.
