British footwear brand Dr Martens has filed a lawsuit against Chinese retail giant Temu, accusing it of trademark infringement. Temu is accused of engaging in paid Google advertising to promote boots sold on its platform, targeting keywords including “Dr. Martens” and “Airwair”, both of which are registered trademarks of Dr Martens. The result, it claims, was that boots sold on Temu appeared ahead of Dr Marten when prospective customers searched for the keywords in Google’s search engine.

Although Google’s advertising policies claim to prohibit advertising that violate IP laws, these policies do not appear to extend to key word advertising.

Once a staple of 70s sub-cultutres – the doc was a favourite of both punks and skinheads – the brand has since achieved perennial success as a fashion classic and has gone through a huge sales growth in recent years. Comfort and practicality are key to the boot’s continued popularity, but a series of collaborations with leading fashion brands, including its 2023 collection with Japanese minimalist label, Nanamica, have contributed to their continued allure. 2024 saw the launch of a collection with Rick Owens as well as its March release, designed with streetwear leader Supreme, of a shoe that constantly changes color.

The fight with Temu will come of no surprise to those closely watching fashion lawsuits. Protecting its trademarks is clearly an important part of the Dr Martens business strategy and in 2023 alone, the company filed lawsuits against Steve Madden, Nasty Gal and Boohoo for various IP infringements. The company also took action against fast fashion platform Shein back in 2021 over the sale of boots under the name “Martin boot” that had a remarkable resemblance to Dr. Marten’s Leather Lace Up Boots. In that case it also accused Shein of using copyrighted images of Dr. Marten’s boots in the product listing in an effort to “mislead and entice customers to purchase the counterfeits at a fraction of the cost of the real Dr. Marten’s products”.