They do look quite similar to me.
One wishes that would-be competitors would get creative and create hot original designs of their own.
There seems to be a problem in Asia where people have MAD skills in CAD modeling, but lack the ability to create completely ORIGINAL designs of their own.
I was also told a story where at ANY large shoe fair, Asian companies send photographers to capture new designs from as many angles as possible.
Apparently their CAD people set workstations up at nearby hotels and immediately start copying the designs from the photos.
From what I am told, knockoff manufacturers often have a full CAD model sent to them in as little as 48 hours.
Apparently they immediately stary to prepare the manufacturing floor over in China for the captured shoe designs.
I wonder what the line is that BAPE crossed to spur action after 23 years? Nigo working for LVMH at Kenzo? Numerologically it was just time? 
The most interesting thing to me is when Nike received the patents for their shoes:
Air Force 1 - 2008
Air Jordan 1 - 2021
They didn’t initially have legal IP to enforce, but once they did, they didn’t do anything.
From what I’ve seen, the court of public opinion doesn’t seem to care much about Bape and others infringing on the trademarks.
They might do that, but they don’t really need to.
All the factories know each other and some sell the specs out the back door.
My guess is that this will all fizzle out, settled out of court, and with no clear answer for any future infringing cases. Which is a pity because I think we’d all like to see it played out in public.
Hard to say. The Apple Samsung case was very public…
The rest sounds possible. However, flying shoe CAD workers and renting them rooms for working in proximity to a shoe tradeshow does not square with the task.