(By You Yunting) In an earlier article, the author criticized Nike for skating close to 7-Eleven’s IP, but the current colorway dispute in fact involves not only 7-Eleven but also a Lawson colorway in the same series (Lawson is a Japanese convenience-store chain). Nike has previously faced IP disputes over brands such as Heineken and Starbucks. In my experience, mature companies that repeatedly become embroiled in IP disputes—as Nike has—are rare; such cases are more common among startups—early Google and Baidu, and today’s AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Suno, among others. Their common feature is a high tolerance for IP risk on the part of management and a willingness to probe the gray areas of infringement aggressively. But are the two phenomena essentially the same? This article examines that question.