Adidas has fought many trade mark battles in Europe and the US
over its stripes because many retailers and clothing manufacturers
have argued that stripes on clothes are not distinctive enough to
be trade marked.
The latest battle was against Collective Brands, which sold
shoes under the Payless and Stride Rite brands. It sold shoes with
two and four stripe designs, claiming that the difference in the
number of stripes made them distinctive from Adidas's shoes.
A nine-person federal jury in Kansas has now ruled that the
shoes do violate Adidas's trade marks and has ordered Collective
Brands to pay Adidas $305 million.
"The three-stripes are paramount to the Adidas brand, and a very
strong and popular brand symbol globally," said an Adidas
spokeswoman, according to news agency The Associated Press. "It is
very satisfying for the three stripes to be recognised as a strong
trademark after the court heard detailed evidence over more than
three weeks."
Collective Brands said that it would ask the court to set aside
the ruling and that it would take further steps to overturn it if
it did not, said AP. A company statement called the ruling
"excessive and unjustified".
In a Dutch court battle over similar issues the European Court
of Justice (ECJ) came down recently on Adidas's side. Questions in
Adidas's case against retailer H&M were referred to the ECJ,
which backed Adidas.
H&M had argued in its case that such a generic and
non-distinctive sign as three stripes should not be protected as a
trade mark.
Last month, though, the ECJ said that courts must take into
account whether consumers would be confused by a sign into thinking
that an item belonged to a different company. Though stripes as
decorative elements must be available to all, it said, a court must
bear in mind that this does not restrict the normal rights of a
trade mark holder.
"The national court must determine whether the average consumer
may be mistaken as to the origin of sports and leisure garments
featuring stripe motifs in the same places and with the same
characteristics as the stripes motif of adidas, except for the fact
that they consist of two rather than three stripes," said an ECJ
statement.
