Jacob rentmeester took Nike to court in 2015. The American photographer believed that the prototype of Jordan's flying man logo came from a photo he took in 1984. Nike's actions violated his rights and interests.

After three years, the copyright dispute has come to a conclusion. On February 28 local time, the Associated Press reported that the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals of the United States finally ruled that the infringement was not established. The judge said that although the photograph of rentmeister is similar to the flying man logo, it does not mean that rentmeister owns the copyright of the logo. In other words, Nike won.
As we all know, in 1984, 21-year-old Michael Jordan was selected by the Chicago Bulls in the NBA draft. Shortly afterwards, Nike signed Jordan for a five-year, $2.5 million contract and launched its first generation of air jordan basketball shoes in 1985.
It really marks the arrival of the Air Jordan era in 1988, when the third generation of air jordan shoes first used the Jumpman logo. Since then, it has gradually been used in all kinds of Jordan brand goods, officially distinguished from Nike's "cross hook".
At present, Jordan Brand generates more than $3 billion in revenue for Nike every year. The flying man logo is considered as a successful design case.
Until 2015, Jacob rentmeister, a photographer from New York, suddenly took Nike to court.
According to rentmeister, in the summer of 1984, he took a picture of Michael Jordan jumping up in the air with his legs apart, which was published in the Olympic column of life magazine. He said he and Jordan spent a lot of time talking about the action and angle when taking the picture, which was finally inspired by the posture of ballet.
Soon after, this picture was taken by Nike. As a freelancer, rentmeister, who holds the copyright, gets $150 for Nike to use the photo twice.
In 1987, the sports brand imitated the photo prototype, took a new picture of the Jumpman dunk, and extended the design to make the Jordan Brand logo. In the process, Nike paid rentmister $15000, but did not buy out the copyright.
More than 30 years from the original photo shoot, Nike made a lot of money using this flying man logo.
At this time, rentmeister believed that the move violated his agreement with Nike in that year, so he filed an appeal in 2015. Lentmist said that at that time, Nike's purchase of the right to use photos only applied to the air jordan 1 advertising, and later Nike's use of the idea on the brand logo was an infringement.
After more than two years of trial, judge Paul Watford said that although the creation of this aerial ballet movement originated from rentmeister, it can only prove that the copyright of the photo in 1984 belongs to him, and his copyright is not enough to form a monopoly on this concept.
In the two photos, Jordan's posture, background and light position are different. In the end, the court dismissed lentmist's claim against Nike in 2015.
This article comes from the network, which is organized and released by the shoe marking machine, trademark transfer machine, Unilever shoe machine