The decision last month by the Trade Marks Office allowing local ugh boot producers to call their product 'ugh-boot' has not been appealed by US company Deckers Outdoor Corporation
The news cements a win which has wide ramifications on almost 100 sheepskin producers around the country.
Small Western Australian company Uggs-N-Rugs has been embroiled in a two year legal battle over the right to use the name 'ugh-boot,' with the US giant owned the trade mark for.
A recent hearing at the Trade Marks Office found that Deckers had not sufficiently used their trade mark and that it should be struck off the trade mark registry.
Australian producers are now free to use the term to describe sheepskin boots.
As previously reported in WA Business News, in recent years Deckers has threatened legal action against those it believed were infringing its trademark.
Minter Ellison special counsel Dave Stewart, who was instructed on the dispute by patent and trade mark attorneys Wray and Associates, said as far as he knew, the 21 days in which Deckers had to file for appeal had passed and that as far as he knew, Deckers had decided not to appeal.
Family owned WA business Uggs-N-Rugs has been making the sheepskin boots for 28 years, and Bronwyn McDougall told WA Business News in January that that she and husband Bruce were elated with the decision.
"I guess this goes to show the little people can win; we have spent two years collecting evidence and spent a lot of money to achieve this result," Ms McDougall said.
"The decision means that we can call our boots ugg boots, and anyone in Australia also can, which is what we were aiming for all along. Ugg boots are a generic Australian term."
She said they had received a lot of support from other producers, the public and the media.
