There is a lot of mis-information written about ugg boots by so-called experts who are utterly confused.

My husband and I have been making ugg boots in Western Australia for 30 years and about 4 years ago an American company called Deckers Outdoor Corpn. had their lawyers send us a letter demanding we cease trading as Uggs-N-Rugs (the business we  registered in 1978).  They demanded we hand over to them our internet domain names, all our advertising material, labels, swing tags etc and cease calling our boots ugg boots.  Ugg boots is the name they've been called in Australia for over 70 years.

In 1996 Deckers bought an old Australian trademark which hadn't been used for years, and should never have been registered as a trademark in the first place and decided to legally threaten most Australian manufacturers and retailers for using the words  'ugg', 'ug' or 'ugh' to describe sheepskin boots. This U.S. company that has most of its boots made in China has the audacity to use the label "Ugg Australia" which is misleading at the very least.

In Australia the word/s ug, ugh and ugg boots  are all generic terms (common names) for sheepskin boots - just like gum boot is generic for rubber boots or slipper is generic for indoor shoes.  Some Australian ugg boot manufacturers have been making them for 3 generations - one since 1938. My husband and I hired a trademark lawyer and a trademark barrister at great expense.  We are only a small family business consisting of ourselves and our younger daughter who works with us - no other employees. 

We most emphatically believed the word ugg was generic and had been generic long before it was ever a trademark and should NOT have been registered. We spent a small fortune and 2 years researching ugg boots and collecting evidence to prove ugg was a common term for sheepskin boots.  We scoured the internet worldwide and bought old magazines with advertisements for ugg boots going back to 1970 in the United States, the 1960's in Australia - found thousands of telephone directory entries for ugg boots spelt all ways for over 30 years - received Statutory Declarations or Affidavits from dozens of business people stating the ugg words were used for sheepskin boots for many years - the oldest reference was 1938.

We collected 2 tea chests of evidence to prove the ugg words generic and we finally had our day of legal Hearing against Deckers in November 2005.  We won our case and the decision was published in January 2006.  Our win means that all Australians now have the right to call sheepskin boots by their real name - ugg boots.  The full text of the Decision of the Hearing by the Australian Governments Trade Mark Office is available online but the crucial part is on page 11. It can be accessed from the website of Intellectual Propery Australia (ipaustralia.gov.au) and in the search box put Hearing 245662.

During the 2 years Jumping Dog Productions producer, Susan Lambert, and her film crew followed us around and made a documentary about our saga "The Good The Bad and The Ugg Boot" which was aired on the ABC throughout Australia and has recently been shown on Pay TV in the U.K. and on many Qantas International flights in and out of Australia.

So the question is "Who makes authentic uggs?" 

Is it the American company Deckers Outdoor Corpn.? (who have the majority of their boots made in China and a token number made in New Zealand and have been in the business for about 11 years)

Or is it the many small manufacturers in Australia? (who have been making them in Australia for decades).

You decide!!!!

Bronwyn McDougall  Secretary/Australian Sheepskin Association

uggs-n-rugs.com.au     

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