Behind Adidas'S Victory

Adidas's three white stripes are trademarks of sporting goods and sportswear. However, many fashion designers also like to use stripes, so over the years, pnational legal disputes continue.

In April 10th, the European Court of justice made a ruling in favor of Adidas, which marked the global dominance of Adidas's "three bars", extending to the "two bars", "four bars" and even all stripes.

Defeated by the 4 stripes trademark, the EU Court ruled that although Adidas trademark is three stripes, it can legally eliminate any competitor's use of two stripes.

The court explained that the number of stripes is not important, but it is important whether buyers will link it to Adidas trademark.

In the wake of the ruling, Adidas overcame C&A, H&M, Marca Mode and Vendex's four major international apparel brands.

For this paper ruling, Adidas has been fighting for ten years.

In the late 90s of last century, Adidas filed a lawsuit against a local court in Holland, claiming that the two stripes designed by the four brands infringed on their trademark rights and interests.

The Holland court held a long pending decision on the "difficult case" until it was submitted to the European Court of justice last year.

Now, after the ruling of the European Court of justice, the case will return to the Holland court again, and ultimately the latter will determine the amount of compensation and so on.

In fact, this is not the most brilliant battle of Adidas's "three bars".

In the past 60 years since the establishment of Adidas in 1949, this kind of legal battle has never stopped.

As early as 1970s, the German court had decided that any two, three or four stripes were designed to infringe Adidas's "three bars" trademark, which has become a permanent decision in Germany.

With this case, Adidas defeated its old rival, Nike.

In 2005, a pair of parallel stripes was stitched on the shorts of Nike's listed shorts. In January of next year, the local court of Cologne, Germany, supported Adidas's complaint and ordered Nike to stop selling such infringing garments and fined 1 million euros.

In the same period, Tom Tailor, a German garment manufacturer, was fined 500 thousand euros for the design of the "two bars" of a jacket cuff.

Outside Germany, Adidas's "striped escort war" is constantly on the way.

In 2003, Adidas filed a lawsuit against Fitness Universal Trading Corporation in Luxemburg. In 2005, Adidas continued to accuse designer Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie and Fitch company to the US court. He thought that two striped patterns of clothing and sneakers were also infringing on their "three bars" trademarks. In 2006, Adidas filed a lawsuit against the Fujian Philharmonic clothing and footwear company in China.

But the design of the "five bars" is an exception now. Since 1966, the Swiss K-SWISS footwear company has been using this uncontroversial five stripes.

It may hit the European Union Court ruling this month, which means that if the two or three or four stripes are designed for clothing and sports shoes within the EU, Adidas trademark will probably be infringed.

Some independent designers have begun to express their dissatisfaction.

Ursula Hudson, a famous designer in London, believes that the design elements of the stripes should not be the private property of a company. "The most dangerous result of this decision is that it will limit the designer's creative inspiration and attack the whole design industry."

In Europe, the media dissatisfied more than Hudson alone.

Adidas's "three bars" logo enjoys a worldwide brand reputation of at least 90%.

With this brand, its annual sales volume has exceeded 10 billion US dollars, and its annual net profit has reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

Adidas magazine commented that Adidas, like a tiger protecting its cubs, fiercely protects its classical stripes, which will expand to the European Union, the United States and the whole world.

News data "victory three line" Adidas's clothing and sports shoes design usually can see 3 parallel lines, also can be seen on its logo, the 3 strips are the characteristics of Adidas.

In 1948, Mr. Adi DassIer, founder of Adidas, used her name Adi and the first three letters of her surname Dassler to form "Adidas" as a commodity brand and applied for registration. In the second year, the three line trademark of Adidas came out.

In 1972, Adidas launched the widely used tri leaf trademark, which is widely used in clothing accessories.

The three line trademark is the symbol of Adidas. Some even call it the "three line of victory".