Everything about it seems almost too good to be true. The orange, green, and red Air Max 95 was made by Nike, the company that made sneaker releases into cultural events. These are the same colors you see at 7-Eleven. After that, the drop was set for July 11. Like, 7/11. The day that 7-Eleven gives away free Slurpees. They even put a small shelf picture from a convenience store on the inside of the shoe. There’s not much of a chance in any of that.
It looks like 7-Eleven didn’t think so either. It was July 2 when the convenience store chain sued Nike in federal court in Dallas, Texas, for trademark infringement. On the upcoming Nike Air Max 95 Big Bubble in “Sport Green and Safety Orange,” the complaint says that this colorway copies or imitates 7-Eleven’s trademarked tri-color stripe branding. The suit’s language is direct. It says that Nike’s actions were “callous” and “malicious,” and it calls the design a “confusingly similar imitation” that is meant to take advantage of the fact that 7-Eleven has built its brand around those three colors for decades.
The time frame made it important. 7-Eleven said it had to act quickly because the shoe was supposedly going to come out on July 11, which is Free Slurpee Day and the store’s unofficial birthday. The company said in a public statement that the lawsuit was necessary to protect its name and that “we had to act quickly and decisively.” They want the court to stop Nike from selling the shoe altogether, take back any pairs that have already been sent out, and give them the money they made from sales plus interest.
That’s not all that makes this case interesting. For 7-Eleven, it’s the different levels of intent that matter. In addition to the three-color stripes that run along the side panels of the Air Max 95, Nike’s official product description is said to have talked about “strolling down to the corner store.” The shoe was already being called a 7-Eleven tribute by the media weeks before the filing. It got picked up by sneaker blogs. It caught on in social media. It looked like everyone agreed on what the shoe was about, except that Nike never asked 7-Eleven for permission.
The lawsuit says that 7-Eleven first tried to handle things privately. The store says it tried to work out the problem with Nike several times before going to court. The filing says that Nike didn’t want to back down and said it would keep advertising the shoe and stick to the planned release date. That stance probably didn’t help Nike’s case, at least from the outside.
There’s a bigger question here about the line between creative homage and trademark infringement. Unofficial tributes to brands have been a part of sneaker culture for a long time. I remember the green-and-red Nike SB Dunk “Heineken” from 2003. It was a nod to the beer brand without being an official partnership. That case didn’t go to court, but the market was different back then. Every news story didn’t become a worldwide discussion within hours thanks to social media.
7-Eleven, on the other hand, says it has used the orange, green, and red color scheme for decades in its own shoes, signs, ads, and even merchandise. The company has registered more than one trademark for that design. A court’s decision on whether Nike crossed the line will probably depend on how strongly people connect those colors with the convenience store versus just seeing a bright pair of sneakers.
The shoes are stuck for now. Nike hasn’t said anything about the lawsuit in public. It’s no surprise that there are different opinions in the sneaker community. Some think 7-Eleven is being too harsh, while others believe Nike knew exactly what it was doing. Watching this, it seems like one of those cases where the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. But the judge won’t let that happen in court.
