Earlier this month, Adidas (ADDYY  ) levied a lawsuit against Nike (NKE  ) regarding some of Nike's digital products. Adidas claims the Nike Run Club, Training Club, and SNKRS apps infringe on its patents pertaining to features like audio feedback throughout workouts, GPS tracking, training plans, third party items such as heart monitors, and the purchase of limited-edition sneakers.

Back in December, Nike filed complaints against Adidas, claiming that Adidas shoes infringed on patents pertaining to its Flyknit sneakers. This lawsuit, which occurred in Oregon, is still being processed. Nike had also sued Adidas in Texas back in 2005 related to show design patents, but it had decided to drop the charges in 2007.

To this day, the two companies are still warring with each other in terms of maintaining a sense of competition and the belief that each has brought about unique attributes to the athletic world.

"Adidas has long been a leader in mobile technology, including technology related to mobile fitness and mobile purchases. Adidas was the first in the industry to comprehensively bring data analytics to athletes," Adidas commented with regards to the lawsuit.

Both Nike and Adidas have utilized the digital world in order to expand on their businesses and to draw more customers in, especially with Adidas and its usage of metaverse avatars, and Nike with its utilization of NFT sneaker studio Rtfkt. But neither company can decide on which of their apps came first or whether they mirror one another in purpose. Adidas has claimed that its Confirmed app was released in 2015 so that it could provide consumers with features like access to brands as well as exclusive sneaker releases. Shortly thereafter, Adidas has claimed that Nike mirrored its features with the release of its SNKRS app.

In addition, Adidas noticed that Nike's Adapt sneakers mirrored the Adidas_1. Although both sneakers seem to have distinct features from one another, Adidas sees similarities between the two, since the Adidas_1 has motors and heel sensors, and the Nike Adapt has self-lacing features.

Ultimately, it is up in the air as to whether Adidas will achieve success with the lawsuit. But if Adidas wins, then this result could possibly have an influence on fitness tracking apps or the future of both Adidas and Nike in general.