BodyArmor responds to Under Armour trademark lawsuit

While apparel company Under Armour looks to ‘protect its trademark’, beverage company BodyArmour is coming out delivering body blows.

Under Armour filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in April against BodyArmor, claiming that the beverage company’s “interlocking logo” on its sports drink bottles, combined with the use of the phrase “protect + restore” infringe on UA’s trademarks. The basis of UA’s suit is that consumers could confuse BodyArmor’s sports drinks, based on the aforementioned logo and verbiage, with Under Armour products and profit off of UA intellectual property.

BodyArmor has since not only responded to the lawsuit in a court of law but released a press release backing up their position,

Michael Repole, Chairman of BODYARMOR® SuperDrink™, said, “We’re fortunate at BODYARMOR SuperDrink to have the financial resources and expertise to fight this ridiculous claim and not back down. Hopefully, this will set a strong example to discourage similar wasteful lawsuits against start-ups posing no threat to larger corporate entities. Under Armour is wasting their time, energy, and financial capital launching a meritless lawsuit against a beverage company, meanwhile taking focus away from their actual apparel competitors. If I were a shareholder of Under Armour, I would have plenty of questions and concerns.” Repole is the co-founder and former President of vitaminwater, which was sold to the Coca-Cola Company in 2007 for $4.1B.

While Under Armour is in more of a “Goliath” role in comparison to BodyArmor’s “David” (UA surpassed $1 billion in sales last year to BodyArmor’s $1 million), Repole, and BodyArmor co-founder Lance Collins do have deep enough pockets to put up a decent legal fight. They also are relying on the fact that they trademarked the BodyArmor bottle design in 2007, and UA has failed to challenge that mark for the last five years,

Lance Collins, Founder and CEO of BODYARMOR® SuperDrink™, said, “It came as a surprise that a large multi-national company focused on athletic apparel would use company resources to attack a start-up company in the beverage industry. We registered the BODYARMOR® trademark with the United States Patent & Trademark Office without ever receiving any objection from Under Armour. The fact that Under Armour is just now bringing this suit, more than five years after we applied for our trademark, further demonstrates that their claims are entirely meritless. We’ve even commissioned a scientific consumer perception survey which confirms that our product is not causing consumer confusion.” Collins is the creator of FUZE Beverages and NOS Energy Drink, which was sold to the Coca-Cola Company in 2007.

With BodyArmor having just filed its response last week, its still too early to tell who will win in this David vs. Goliath lawsuit. But one thing is for sure, it looks like BodyArmor isn’t backing down from the fight.