The fur flies as this year's celebrity must-have pits an Australian cottage industry David against an American corporate Goliath. Tony Mortel's hair is standing on end, an effect created by equal doses of gel and outrage. "Who do they think they are?" he fumes. "Telling us what we can and can't call our product, trying to stop us from making a living. Well, they can stick their demands where the sun doesn't shine." Mortel comes from seven generations of bootmakers and, for the past 45 years, his family has been making uggs, the once daggy sheepskin Uggs now worn by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Moss. Their factory at Rutherford, in the NSW Hunter Valley, turns out 16,000 pairs a year. At least it used to, before a large United States company began taking an unwelcome interest in its affairs. Staff at Mortels Sheepskin Factory had just returned from their Christmas break when a letter arrived from the Melbourne solicitors of Deckers Outdoor Corporation, a California-based conglomerate. The letter, which was sent to 19 other Australian firms, informed them that Deckers owned all rights to the name ugg and instructed Mortels to stop using it or face litigation. "I just laughed," says Mortel. "I thought they were crazy. I threw it in the bin." But it was no laughing matter. Soon afterwards, at the instigation of Deckers, Mortels was ejected from eBay, the Internet auction site where it had been selling uggs to American consumers. Last month, it was ordered by ICANN, the Internet regulatory body, to stop using "ugg" in its domain name. The two dozen traders affected by such legal moves are reeling from shock and disbelief. For decades, they have been part of a thriving cottage industry founded on a product that - according to folklore - has its origins in 1920s rural Australia, when shearers used to wrap sheepskin around their feet to keep warm in the sheds. Uggs， they argue, have always been called href=http://www.shoppingugg.co.uk>Uggs, originally an abbreviation of ugly. No-one bothered with trademarks because ugg was a generic term. Everyone knew it meant a comfortable, flat-heeled sheepskin boot, although - until the current fashion craze - few people admitted to owning a pair. Brian Iverson, owner of Blue Mountains Ugg Boots, says of Deckers' demands: "It's like saying you can't call a car a car." The problem is, someone did bother with trademarks. In 1971, a Sydney surf champion, Shane Steadman, decided to capitalise on the growing popularity of uggs among Australian - and visiting US - surfers, who were starting to recognise the appeal of a snug boot when they emerged shivering from the ocean. He began selling uggs and registered the name. Steadman was not the only Australian wave-rider with a sharp eye for a business opportunity. In 1979, so the story goes, one Brian Smith arrived in New York with a few pairs of uggs in his backpack. He set up a company, Ugg Holdings Inc, registered the Ugg trademark in 25 countries and in 1995 sold out to Deckers. For a long time, not a peep was heard from the new US owners of the iconic Australian boot. The company sent out a flurry of warning letters five years ago, but did not follow them up. According to Middletons, its Melbourne lawyers, it was only when Australian manufacturers began selling uggs on the Internet to meet soaring overseas demand that Deckers felt obliged to crack down. Not surprisingly, the local firms - most of them small family outfits with a handful of employees - are unimpressed with the Santa Barbara-based company's arguments. They say Brian Smith was awarded the trademarks in error and are planning court action to have them rescinded, at least in Australia. Their only other choice is to give up and go under - for without the name ugg, they say, they cannot sell their boots. "People around the world know them as Ugg boots," says Tony Mortel. "My family has been marketing them as uggs for 45 years. For Deckers to say that we should give it all up, without compensation, is borderline monopolisation." The traders have united under the banner of the Australian Sheepskin Association and set up a fighting fund to finance the forthcoming legal battle. Those waiting in limbo include Westhaven Industries, a disabled services charity that employs 65 people at its factory in Dubbo, in central-western NSW. Ugg boots are the charity's most profitable product and without them the business would not survive. General manager Gordon Tindall insists the word ugg is "as generic as meat pie or tomato sauce", and says he has every right to use it. "If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck and not a chook in my book," he says. "It's like the Ford Motor Company claiming that they own the word 'sedan'." When Westhaven received the letter from Middletons in the New Year, he says, "my first thought was 'bugger, we'll have to comply'. Then I thought, 'why should I?' Our industry has agreed that we won't be bullied by these guys. We'll carry on doing what we've always done and let Deckers take some of us on." At Mortels, situated on a light industrial estate outside Maitland, about 160km north of Sydney, the latest uggs - in this season's colours of pale blue, pale pink, lavender and denim - are arrayed in a shop emblazoned with "Ugg Boots And Slippers" in huge lettering. Tony Mortel has been told to remove the word ugg from the window. He has not complied. Inside the small factory, beneath the laughter and good-natured banter, there is an edge of anxiety. "If we can't make uggs anymore, I'll have to find another line of work," says Marewa Lamb. She and the others operating the mini-production line have one word to describe the notion that they should stop calling an ugg an ugg. "Stupid," says Angela Daley, who binds the boot and adds the finishing details. "Everyone knows them as Ugg boots. If you changed the name, people wouldn't know what you were talking about." Their views are shared by Mortel's father, Frank - now 71 and retired, but furious about the turn of events. Frank emigrated from Holland in 1958, bringing a few sewing machines, and set up a tiny sheepskin factory. From a long line of orthopaedic bootmakers, he made his first pair of fur-lined slippers for his wife, Rita. He then started making the slippers and boots commercially. "We called them uggs from the start," he says, "although I recall other names such as 'woolly hoppers'. I'm sure this American company is just trying to frighten people off." If that's true, the tactics appear to have worked. Some manufacturers have excised the offending word from their trading names or Web sites. Westhaven no longer has the word ugg in its catalogues and price lists. Others, such as Uggs-N-Rugs in Kenwick, Perth, are standing firm, but with trepidation. Brian Iverson, whose family has made uggs for three generations, says: "Uggs are as Australian as the Harbour Bridge." Tony Watson, a partner with Middletons, says the portrayal of Deckers as "some big, bad, aggressive American company that likes squashing small businesses" is unfounded. "We don't want litigation, but people have to understand the bigger picture," he says. It was Deckers, he says, who transformed uggs into a high-fashion item, spending $7 million on marketing over the past decade and sending boots to personalities such as Oprah Winfrey. Now others are reaping the benefits. "My client has developed a marketplace and is trying to protect it," he says. "They are certainly not going to throw their hands up and say, 'We've invested all this money, we've built up the brand and registered the trademark, now we're just going to walk away.'" Among Deckers' competitors, those who sell over the Internet are most vulnerable. Without "ugg" in their domain or trading names, they will not be located by consumers searching the Web. All searches will lead to Ugg Australia, the brand name under which Deckers sells the boots around the world. The company appears determined to protect its dominant position in the US as well as among European consumers. Yet Australian traders say they have been exporting to the US and elsewhere for decades. "Between us, we must have spent far more than Deckers on marketing," says Tony Mortel. The irony is that while Deckers is trying to prevent Australian traders from calling an Australian product a name by which it has always been known in Australia, it brazenly exploits ugg's local origins through its choice of brand name. Claims that it uses American (rather than Australian) sheepskins are flatly denied by Tony Watson, though he admits that, as of a few months ago, "some" uggs are manufactured in China, with the rest produced in Australia and New Zealand. He compares "ugg" with "biro" and "hoover" which, though used generically, are protected by trademarks. A false comparison, says Tony Mortel. In those cases, a product was developed and marketed and a name invented and trademarked. In the case of ugg, all the hard work was put in by others, then Deckers came along and bought the name. "We've put our heart and soul into this product," Mortel says. "It's our livelihood, our heritage." Watson does not have an answer to this. "We'll no doubt get to the bottom of it if the case comes to court," he says. He adds that Australian traders should accept reality and develop another brand. "How about Surfers' Sheepskin Boots?" he suggests. Mortel refuses to acknowledge the possibility of defeat. "We're going to carry on fighting. We know we're in the right, and we know we're going to win. It's just a matter of time."