Adidas secures preliminary injunction in Skechers row

A US court has ordered Skechers to stop selling three lines of shoes which Adidas has accused of infringing the trade dress of its Stan Smith brand.

The US District Court for the District of Oregon granted Adidas’s request for a preliminary injunction after it was persuaded that Adidas would suffer “irreparable harm” if the order was not enacted.

The parties have faced off in court before, but the latest battle concerns Skechers’s Onix, Supernova and Relaxed Fit Cross Court TR lines.

Adidas added that the shoes also infringed its registered trademarks, including its three-stripe mark.

On Friday, February 12, Judge Marco Hernandez granted the preliminary injunction barring the sale of all three lines.

“Without an injunction, Skechers can essentially free-ride off of these efforts, while at the same time undermining Adidas’s branding, quality control, and strategic planning,” Hernandez wrote.

Hernandez said that the design of the Stan Smith shoe was distinctive and held no functional purpose, holding that it was a protectable design.

Named after former US tennis player Stan Smith, the shoe, according to Adidas’s initial lawsuit, is a classic tennis design with a raised mustache-shaped coloured heel patch.

Hernandez added that it was also in the public interest to grant the injunction.

“Adidas has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed in proving that Skechers is using marks that are confusingly similar or even identical to Adidas’s marks.

“Since the ‘very interest at issue in a trademark infringement case ... is avoiding the public from being confused or deceived about a product,’ the court finds an injunction preventing Skechers from selling these contested products will serve the public interest,” he concluded.