Kawhi Leonard clearly has no love for his former company.
The Toronto Raptors superstar has filed a lawsuit against Nike claiming he designed the logo that appeared on his Nike apparel, but the company copyrighted it without Leonard’s consent.
Via The Blast:
According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Leonard claims that he created a unique logo for himself after he was drafted to the NBA in 2011.
“Leonard traced his notably large hand,” the lawsuit states, “and, inside the hand, drew stylized versions of his initials ‘KL’ and the number that he had worn for much of his career, ‘2.’”
He claims that as part of his endorsement deal with Nike several years later, he “allowed Nike to use on certain merchandise the logo he created while Leonard continued to use the logo on non-Nike goods.”
But, he claims that unbeknownst to him, “Nike filed an application for copyright registration of his logo and falsely represented in the application that Nike had authored the logo.”
Kawhi Leonard claims that he wants to use the logo for “clothing lines, footwear and on other products and, among other things, in connection with sports camps and charity functions, but Nike explicitly has objected to such uses.”
The NBA star is asking a judge to declare that he is the rightful owner of the logo and to rule that Nike “committed fraud on the Copyright Office in registering the Leonard Logo.”
If you can remember, the Los Angeles Clippers were said to have “quietly looked into … purchasing the rights to Leonard’s ‘Klaw’ logo,” which was an attempt to lure him to their franchise after the season, according to Marc Stein.
Kawhi had been a Jordan Brand endorser since coming into the league, but they decided to let him walk after he turned down a 4 year/$22 million extension.
This is certainly something Kawhi is having his lawyers deal with so he can focus on the NBA Finals and trying to steal a game at Oracle as the series is tied 1-1.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NBA stories via Google! Follow Us
Leonard is averaging 30.9 points and 9.1 points this postseason.
