Rothy’s secures injunction protecting design patents and trade dress in footwear dispute

A US federal court has entered a consent judgment and permanent injunction protecting Rothy’s footwear designs, adopting stipulated findings that 10 design patents and trade dress rights associated with The Point and The Flat shoes are valid and infringed.

The US District Court for the District of Delaware entered the judgment on August 21, 2026, following an action brought by Rothy’s, Inc. against MIA Shoes, Inc. and three retailers: Designer Brands, Inc., doing business as DSW; Stitch Fix, Inc.; and BG Retail, LLC, doing business as Famous Footwear.

The case concerned four knitted ballet-flat styles manufactured by MIA and sold by the defendants.

Court adopts findings on patents and trade dress

Rothy’s filed the action on July 24, 2024, asserting 10 US design patents together with trade dress rights associated with its The Point and The Flat shoes.

The asserted design patents are D905,947; D872,987; D866,943; D844,313; D995,090; D950,226; D836,314; D805,276; D905,946; and D995,091.

Under the consent judgment, the court adopted stipulated findings of fact and conclusions of law that Rothy’s asserted design patents and trade dress rights are valid and that the accused MIA products infringe them.

The judgment addresses four MIA footwear styles: The MIA Kerri shoe, sold by Stitch Fix under the name Izzy, was found to infringe four Rothy’s design patents — the ‘313, ‘943, ‘987, and ‘947 patents — as well as The Point trade dress. The MIA Lissy, sold by Stitch Fix as the Kaelynn, was found to infringe the ‘943 design patent and The Point trade dress. The MIA Aubrie was found to infringe the ‘090, ‘226, ‘314, and ‘276 design patents and The Flat trade dress. The MIA Emme Ballet Flat was found to infringe the ‘946 and ‘091 design patents.

Permanent injunction bars sale and importation

The court permanently enjoined MIA, DSW, Stitch Fix, and Famous Footwear from making, using, advertising, promoting, offering for sale, selling, or importing the four accused footwear styles into the United States.

The injunction covers the MIA Kerri, MIA Lissy, MIA Aubrie, and MIA Emme Ballet Flat shoes.

The parties reached a resolution of the dispute, with the terms of that resolution remaining confidential.

Combined IP protection

The case is notable for the combination of design patent and trade dress protection used to protect Rothy’s footwear designs.

Design patents protect ornamental aspects of a product’s appearance, while trade dress can protect the overall appearance or other characteristics of a product when the applicable legal requirements are satisfied.

Here, Rothy’s asserted both forms of protection in relation to its signature footwear designs. The consent judgment therefore provides an example of how design-led brands can use multiple forms of US intellectual property protection to address alleged copying of product appearance.

Rothy’s Chief Legal Officer, Marie Satterfield, said the company’s intellectual property portfolio includes more than 700 granted or pending design patents, as well as trade dress rights.

The company said the judgment reinforced the strength of its IP portfolio and that it would continue to enforce its intellectual property rights. The action is captioned Rothy’s, Inc. v. MIA Shoes, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 1:24-cv-00859-GBW (D. Del.).

The judgment follows previous IP enforcement actions by Rothy’s involving footwear designs, including proceedings against Birdies, Giesswein, and OESH Shoes.

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