Plaintiff
1 case as plaintiff.
New Balance Athletics, Inc. (commonly "New Balance") is a privately held athletic footwear and apparel company headquartered at 100 Guest St., Boston, Massachusetts. It traces its origins to 1906, when William J. Riley founded the New Balance Arch Support Company in Boston; Jim Davis purchased the business in 1972 and the Davis family has owned it since. It is not publicly traded and files no SEC reports. Reported size varies by source: roughly 10,000–14,000 employees globally and approximately $7.8 billion in 2024 revenue (company statements and third-party profiles), with CEO Joe Preston and Chairman Jim Davis.
New Balance designs, manufactures and sells athletic footwear, apparel and accessories for men, women and children, sold in over 120 countries. Product lines include performance running (Fresh Foam, FuelCell), trail, basketball, tennis, soccer (Tekela, Furon), lacrosse, baseball and lifestyle sneakers. It is unusual among major athletic brands in retaining domestic manufacturing, operating five New England factories plus a Flimby, U.K. plant, and it owns or has owned sub-brands including Warrior and Brine. Revenue figures are self-reported because the company is private.
Litigation posture: operating company, not an NPE. The two tracked cases are a single dispute with Nike: one defendant case and one PTAB proceeding. New Balance is defending Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc. (D. Mass., filed Nov. 6, 2023), and separately petitioned the PTAB in New Balance Athletics, Inc. v. Nike, Inc. (IPR2025-00020, filed Nov. 5, 2024). Both venues sit in its home district and the PTAB, not plaintiff-friendly forums such as the Eastern District of Texas.
In the district court case, Nike asserts nine patents covering Flyknit knitted-upper technology against 61 accused New Balance products; New Balance counterclaimed for declaratory judgments of non-infringement and invalidity and moved to stay pending IPR, which the court declined (June 2025). Its IPR petition challenged claims 11–15 of Nike's U.S. 8,898,932 patent; the Board denied institution on June 9, 2025.
New Balance filed an inter partes review challenging the '932 patent after Nike served infringement contentions in the Massachusetts case. The PTAB denied institution on the merits on June 9, 2025.