FC Barcelona backs down in Adidas trademark quarrel

Spanish professional football club  FC Barcelona has backed down from a quarrel with sportswear company Adidas by abandoning a trademark application.

In November last year, WIPR reported that Adidas had filed a notice of opposition to Barcelona’s trademark application for a red and blue striped design.

The application for the mark, which was described as a “square containing seven vertical stripes”, was filed in May 2015 at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

It covered goods such as t-shirts, footwear, posters, photographs, tennis balls and rackets.

Adidas filed a notice of opposition to the mark on October 31, 2016, accusing Barcelona of infringing its ‘three-stripe’ mark.

According to the claim, Adidas has used the mark on its footwear in the US since 1952.

Barcelona’s applied-for mark “incorporates parallel stripes in a manner confusingly similar to the ‘three-stripe’ mark in appearance and overall commercial impression”, said Adidas.

The football club appears to have backed down—on February 7, Barcelona filed its motion to withdraw the trademark application with Adidas’s consent.

On February 14, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board held that the application was abandoned and that the opposition is dismissed without prejudice.

Earlier this week, WIPR reported that fashion retailer Forever 21 had hit out at Adidas and its ‘three-stripe’ mark.

Forever 21 filed a declaratory judgment claim at the US District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, accusing Adidas of taking its trademark protection too far.

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