Leonard has said that he designed his Klaw logo himself while he was a student at San Diego StateNBAE/GETTY IMAGES
Nike has "hit back" at Clippers F Kawhi Leonard's claim that his drawing of his "Klaw" logo while in college "predates his Nike contract," according to Sindhu Sindar of WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY. Nike argued Leonard was "playing 'word games' to equate what it believes are actually two different logos." Leonard has said that he "designed the logo" while at San Diego State, before his Nike contract that began in '11. But Nike argued that the logo Leonard designed in college was "simply the trace of his hand with his initials in it, and not 'the refined logo' that Nike claims its designers worked on during the contract," which Nike refers to as the Klaw design. The company has "sought to distinguish that design from what it describes as Leonard's more straightforward drawing of his hand containing the letters K and L." Nike argued that Leonard "misleadingly refers to both logos interchangeably as the 'Leonard Logo,' but that they are different." Leonard had argued in his earlier lawsuit that Nike "cannot have a legitimate copyright registration of a logo he had conceived, and that any modifications that Nike's designers had made to his logo weren't enough to be considered copyrightable material" (WWD.com, 9/3).
