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19 June 2019Trademarks

EU General Court rules Adidas three-stripe TM is invalid

The EU General Court has upheld a decision that Adidas’ three-stripe trademark is invalid.

In a judgment today, June 19, the court sided with the European Intellectual Property Office’s Second Board of Appeal, ruling that the trademark is “extremely simple” and “lacks distinctive character”.

The trademark in dispute is for a figurative mark which consists of “three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied on the product in any direction”.

Adidas registered the mark in 2014 for goods including footwear, clothing and headgear.

In 2017, the Board of Appeal declared the trademark invalid after it was challenged by Belgian company Shoe Branding Europe.

In its judgment today, the General Court said Adidas had failed to show that the mark had acquired “distinctive character” throughout the European Union.

Adidas had argued that the registered trademark was not a figurative mark, but a pattern mark which does not have fixed proportions.

But, the General Court disagreed. It said it is not apparent from either the graphic representation of the mark or the description of the mark that it is composed of a series of regularly repetitive elements.

Additionally, it said Adidas’ assertion that the mark is for “the use of three parallel equidistant stripes, irrespective of their length or the way in which they are cut” is not supported by any concrete evidence.

It said that although the description of the mark states the stripes “may be applied on a product in any direction”, it does not state that the length of those stripes could be modified.

Shireen Peermohamed, a partner in the IP team at law firm Harbottle & Lewis in London said the decision is not surprising.

“We are seeing the EUIPO focus much more on ensuring that trademarks are not improperly registered and the public can easily understand their scope,” she said.

She added: “If a brand owner cannot demonstrate use of a trademark throughout the EU then their trademark could be cancelled down the line, or, as here, never registered in the first place.”

Peermohamed said that brand owners should review their EU marks and make sure their scope is “clear and that they are using them in the form registered”.

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5 February 2019   Footwear brand Skechers has asked a US court to declare that one of its shoe styles does not infringe Adidas’s three-stripe trademark.
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