Kizik parent company HandsFree Labs has filed a new lawsuit against Skechers USA for allegedly infringing on its footwear patents.

In a lawsuit filed July 24 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Kizik is claiming that Skechers “knowingly and willfully infringed” four HandsFree Labs utility patents, which protect core mechanical innovations that enable true hands-free shoe entry, as well as two HandsFree Labs design patents, which protect ornamental innovations.

Kizik stated that the case centers around Skechers’ fast-growing Hands Free Slip-ins line, one that Skechers has positioned as a major innovation. Kizik is claiming that Skechers is using the patented technologies that it invented, developed, and protected years before Skechers entered the category.

“With its growth stagnating, this new shoe category was critical for Skechers,” HandsFree Labs claimed in the lawsuit. “Skechers founder and CEO Robert Greenberg even acknowledged that Hands Free Slip-ins technology was ‘integral to our global growth.’ From their debut just a few years ago, Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins now account for around 35 percent of the products listed on its website. That astonishing growth recently fueled a windfall $9.42 billion acquisition announcement — with $1.1 billion going straight to Mr. Greenberg.”

FN has reached out to Skechers for comment.

“This isn’t just a product Skechers copied, it’s a category we created,” Gareth Hosford, chief executive officer of HandsFree Labs, said in a statement. “From the start, our mission was clear – to revolutionize how people put on their shoes. We believed this everyday task could be easier, faster, and more convenient. We poured our energy into developing the technology to solve a real-world problem and make hands-free shoes a reality. We’re now forced to defend that work against a company that chose to imitate rather than innovate.”

HandsFree Labs said that it holds a global intellectual property portfolio of more than 200 issued and pending patents covering multiple proprietary hands-free footwear systems, including its Cage, Flex Arc, and Squeeze It technologies.

Since 2019, HandsFree Labs noted that it has licensed its technologies to partners like Nike, but that Skechers has not contacted the company to license its patents.

“The real danger here isn’t just to our company, it’s to innovation itself,” Hosford added. “When billion-dollar brands can openly copy protected technologies and profit from doing so with no consequences, it sends a dangerous message to every entrepreneur, engineer, and inventor: your work doesn’t matter. We can’t accept that. And we won’t.”

This isn’t the first time Kizik and its parent company have moved to protect its patents. In September, the shoe firm filed a lawsuit against Tishkoff Enterprises, LLC, dba “Drew Shoe” for patent infringement of its signature cage technology.

Kizik also alleged in the lawsuit that Drew Shoe acted with “intentional and bad faith conduct” when designing and promoting its alleged infringing products.

This lawsuit has since been dismissed, according to a filing submitted in the Southern District of Ohio on March 5.