UGG is an American fashion company primarily known for its sheepskin boots, founded in 1978 by Brian Smith in California.

[6] Smith and Jensen first applied to be the United States distributors for the Western Australian sheepskin boot manufacturer Country Leather.

[9] During the late 1990s, UGG began experiencing double-digit sales growth as Deckers developed the company into an international brand.

The company launched its first men's advertising campaign in 2011 featuring New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in 2011.

[25] The boots gained a large celebrity following and were frequently seen on notable people such as Kate Upton, Blake Lively,[26] Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez,[27] Leonardo DiCaprio, The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood,[28] and Sarah Jessica Parker[11] as Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City.

Attempts by Deckers to stop other traders from using the "UGG" mark in Australia were challenged, ultimately leading to 2006 decisions by IP Australia to remove company's "UGH" and "UGH-BOOTS" trademarks due to non-use, finding that they had not been used during a three-year period ending one month before a removal application was submitted.

In 2004, Deckers filed a case against Koolaburra in the California federal court asserting that their use of "Ug" was trademark infringement.

[30] In February 2005, the court ruled for Deckers stating that survey evidence clearly demonstrates that the UGG mark is not generic.

There was no evidence that Smith acted with an intent to defraud the Trademark Office, and consumers would likely be confused with the similarity in "appearance, sight and sound" between "Ug" and "UGG" as the parties were marketing in direct competition with identical products.

[30] Other UGG trademark disputes have occurred with companies including Luda Production Pty[38][39] and Emu Australia,[40][41][42] as well as local manufacturers in countries such as Turkey and China.

[44] Law enforcement officials in the UK, the US and China have reported seizures of counterfeit UGG brand boots.

[48][49] The National Arbitration Forum, which has been appointed by ICANN to resolve most Internet domain name disputes, has used Deckers Brands ownership of the UGG trademark in the United States as part of several decisions to direct Internet domains containing UGG to be transferred to Deckers.

In 2007, Pamela Anderson, realizing that UGG-branded boots were made of sheepskin, wrote on her website that she does not support the brand any longer.

"Students lay in the newly fallen snow on the Frist Campus Center's North Front Lawn on Friday afternoon, feigning death, wearing coats covered with fake blood and sporting signs that read, 'What if you were killed for your coat?'