Australian sheepskin Ugg boots manufacturers are no longer allowed to call their product Uggs but the name will still live on in the Aussie vernacular. The name ugg australia or ugh' for the popular sheepskin boots, which have been sold and worn in Australia for decades, was registered as a trademark in 1986 and now belongs to American footwear com/pany Deckers. Later, in a move which has outraged local manufacturers and retailers of the boots, Deckers took legal action against local com/panies using the name uggs on sale. Small Australian ugg boots uk makers have rallied and are fighting back under the banner "Save our Aussie Icon". Bronwyn and Bruce McDougall have been selling the footwear at their Perth shop, genuine ugg boots-n-Rugs, since 1978. Mrs McDougall said she and her husband are fighting for the right to call their product by the same name everyone else in Australia calls it. "In nearly 30 years of selling ugg boots, I can't recall a customer saying they want to buy sheepskin boots - it's always uggs', uggies', huggies' or ugg boots'," Mrs McDougall said. "It's a descriptive word, it was put into the Macquarie Dictionary in 1982, where it is referred to as a fleecy-lined boot'." The Westhaven Association in Dubbo, which has been producing the boots for 30 years, was forced to stop using the name ugg by Deckers in 2003. And it had to change its name from Westhaven Ugg Boot Shop to the Westhaven Sheepskin Warehouse but general manager Gordon Tindall said his primary concern was about about losing an Australian icon. "The issue is that the word ugg is an Australian icon, it's a generic Australian term, and irrespective of what the legal people decide in that regard, all Australians will refer to them as ugg boots," Mr Tindall said. "Basically they are an Australian product that I believe has been stolen, even though it was paid for and legally obtained, it has been stolen by an overseas corporation. "What Australian manufacturers have been doing for years has been working on the premise that the word ugg is a generic term, like thong or t-shirt, and therefore they didn't need to register it." Pacific Sheepskin Products, the Australian com/pany which has been producing Ugg brand boots for Deckers since the mid-1980s, said Deckers was not trying to put other manufacturers out of business but the com/pany had to protect its trademark. "We welcom/e com/petition, but please don't use our trademark," Pacific chief executive Wade O'Brien said. Mr O'Brien said, while he felt for the small Australian retailers who have always called their product ugg boots, the name ugg received trademark registration and that had to be respected. "When trademark registration was granted in 1986 it passed the generic test," he said. "Deckers have paid many many millions of dollars for this name, and the same again in promoting it with celebrities around the world, so I believe they are entitled to it." Meanwhile, the publicity surrounding the fight for the name has provided an unexpected bonus for some com/panies, according to Mr Tindall. "I'm not too worried about com/petition from Deckers in Australia, it was expected, and customers will determine whether they want to pay for an expensive label, or are they willing to pay a smaller price for an equally good quality boot," he said. "But we've had tremendous publicity as a result - I couldn't have bought the publicity, and it has resulted in excellent sales for us." He said, regardless of the legalities, Australians would continue to refer to the boots as uggs. "People will always know them as ugg boots, no matter what you sell them as - you can't call them anything else."