Adidas Loses Legal Battle Over Trademark

German sportswear giant Adidas yesterday lost a legal battle to
trademark its “three stripes” motif in the European Union, as a court
ruled the design was not distinctive enough to deserve protection.
The General Court of the European Union ruled that the three parallel
stripes seen adorning everything from running shoes to sports bags and
the sleeves of t-shirts are an ordinary figurative mark. The court, the EU’s second-highest tribunal, upheld a 2016 ruling by the bloc’s intellectual property regulator cancelling the registration
of the three-stripe design as a trademark following a challenge by a
Belgian shoe company.
The General Court of the EU confirms the invalidity of the Adidas. European Union trade mark which consists of three parallel stripes
applied in any direction.