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Three stripes? You’re out… of court, Adidas

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Adidas

Adidas’ famous three-stripe design can’t be protected by trademark in Europe.

So said the European Union General Court on Wednesday, upholding an earlier decision that the Germany-based company’s signature three parallel stripes — on sneakers, track suits, T-shirts and more — lacks “the necessary distinctiveness to be protected as a trademark,” TheFashionLaw.com reported Wednesday.

The fashion news site has been tracking the suit since the brand began its years-long fight to secure and enforce rights to its design — often mimicked in copycat designs.

The latest decision says that Adidas’ three-stripe mark is “not a pattern mark, as Adidas has asserted, but instead, an ordinary figurative mark, meaning that it has fixed proportions” and “the sportswear brand failed to show that its largely well-known mark had acquired the necessary distinctive character throughout all 28 countries of the EU in order to qualify for legal protection,” the news site reported.

 

 

 

 

 

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