What do sportswear and a patent dispute over heart-rate monitoring technology have in common?
More than one might think.
In August 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which had found 13 challenged claims of Nike’s US Patent No. 8,620,413 invalid for lack of patentability. This marked the latest chapter in the long-running dispute between Nike and Lululemon — and yet another illustration of how competition between fashion brands is increasingly moving far beyond apparel and footwear.
How did it all begin?
In January 2022, Nike filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court against Lululemon and Curiouser Products, the company behind the Mirror brand.
The dispute centred on the Mirror Home Gym system — an interactive home fitness device with a screen and a companion mobile application, allowing users to follow digital workouts, track performance metrics, and interact with other users.
Nike alleged that Lululemon’s products infringed six of its patents, covering various aspects of connected fitness technology — from activity monitoring and the creation of personalised training zones, to user competitions, performance tracking, and data sharing.
Lululemon, however, adopted an interesting procedural strategy: rather than confining itself to defending against the claims on the merits, the company initiated inter partes review proceedings before the USPTO with respect to all six patents.
In simpler terms, Lululemon called into question not only whether Mirror infringed Nike’s rights, but also whether Nike’s patent claims themselves met the requirements of patentability.
What was at the centre of the most recent dispute?
One of the patents — U.S. Patent No. 8,620,413 — describes technology enabling an electronic device, such as a watch, to use data about a user’s physical condition to generate individual heart-rate zones and subsequently manage the workout.
This raised a fundamental question: was the technical solution claimed by Nike genuinely novel enough to merit patent protection?
The PTAB concluded that it was not.
Lululemon pointed to earlier technical solutions that allowed workout intensity to be adjusted based on user parameters such as stride length and weight. In the PTAB’s view, these characteristics could be used to assess a user’s fitness level and therefore fell within the scope of the relevant Nike patent claim.
Nike, for its part, attempted to advance a narrower construction of the claim language and argued that the relevant elements of the prior art did not reproduce the claimed invention.
The Federal Circuit disagreed with that argument and upheld the PTAB’s decision.
Why does this matter to the fashion industry?
At first glance, this looks like an ordinary patent dispute.
But looking more broadly, the case highlights an important shift in the nature of fashion brands' intellectual property.
Today, a major fashion brand may own not only trade marks, designs, and fabric manufacturing technologies. Its IP portfolio may include software, algorithms, wearable devices, sensors, digital platforms, and methods of data processing.
That is precisely why the boundary between fashion and technology is becoming increasingly blurred.
Nike and Lululemon are no longer competing solely over shoe design or sportswear functionality. They are competing for the digital ecosystem around the consumer — how people train, what workout data is collected, how it is analysed, and how it is transformed into a personalised user experience.
And another important legal lesson
This dispute illustrates well why, for tech-driven fashion companies, it is not enough simply to obtain a patent.
The broader the patent claims are drafted, the greater the potential scope of technologies covered. But at the same time, the likelihood increases that certain elements already existed in the prior art.
In other words, a broad patent claim may give a strong position against competitors — but it also creates vulnerability when the validity of the patent is challenged.
Perhaps, in the future, the question will no longer be simply "who owns the design?", but something much broader:
"Who owns the technology that makes clothing and sport smarter?"
More than one might think.
In August 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which had found 13 challenged claims of Nike’s US Patent No. 8,620,413 invalid for lack of patentability. This marked the latest chapter in the long-running dispute between Nike and Lululemon — and yet another illustration of how competition between fashion brands is increasingly moving far beyond apparel and footwear.
How did it all begin?
In January 2022, Nike filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court against Lululemon and Curiouser Products, the company behind the Mirror brand.
The dispute centred on the Mirror Home Gym system — an interactive home fitness device with a screen and a companion mobile application, allowing users to follow digital workouts, track performance metrics, and interact with other users.
Nike alleged that Lululemon’s products infringed six of its patents, covering various aspects of connected fitness technology — from activity monitoring and the creation of personalised training zones, to user competitions, performance tracking, and data sharing.
Lululemon, however, adopted an interesting procedural strategy: rather than confining itself to defending against the claims on the merits, the company initiated inter partes review proceedings before the USPTO with respect to all six patents.
In simpler terms, Lululemon called into question not only whether Mirror infringed Nike’s rights, but also whether Nike’s patent claims themselves met the requirements of patentability.
What was at the centre of the most recent dispute?
One of the patents — U.S. Patent No. 8,620,413 — describes technology enabling an electronic device, such as a watch, to use data about a user’s physical condition to generate individual heart-rate zones and subsequently manage the workout.
This raised a fundamental question: was the technical solution claimed by Nike genuinely novel enough to merit patent protection?
The PTAB concluded that it was not.
Lululemon pointed to earlier technical solutions that allowed workout intensity to be adjusted based on user parameters such as stride length and weight. In the PTAB’s view, these characteristics could be used to assess a user’s fitness level and therefore fell within the scope of the relevant Nike patent claim.
Nike, for its part, attempted to advance a narrower construction of the claim language and argued that the relevant elements of the prior art did not reproduce the claimed invention.
The Federal Circuit disagreed with that argument and upheld the PTAB’s decision.
Why does this matter to the fashion industry?
At first glance, this looks like an ordinary patent dispute.
But looking more broadly, the case highlights an important shift in the nature of fashion brands' intellectual property.
Today, a major fashion brand may own not only trade marks, designs, and fabric manufacturing technologies. Its IP portfolio may include software, algorithms, wearable devices, sensors, digital platforms, and methods of data processing.
That is precisely why the boundary between fashion and technology is becoming increasingly blurred.
Nike and Lululemon are no longer competing solely over shoe design or sportswear functionality. They are competing for the digital ecosystem around the consumer — how people train, what workout data is collected, how it is analysed, and how it is transformed into a personalised user experience.
And another important legal lesson
This dispute illustrates well why, for tech-driven fashion companies, it is not enough simply to obtain a patent.
The broader the patent claims are drafted, the greater the potential scope of technologies covered. But at the same time, the likelihood increases that certain elements already existed in the prior art.
In other words, a broad patent claim may give a strong position against competitors — but it also creates vulnerability when the validity of the patent is challenged.
Perhaps, in the future, the question will no longer be simply "who owns the design?", but something much broader:
"Who owns the technology that makes clothing and sport smarter?"