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After more than 20 years, Adidas suffered a new judicial blow: the International Court of Arbitration ruled that the German company does not own exclusive rights to the three stripes that it has been trying to impose as its brand image, at least in the territories of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, among others. The case dates back to 1997, when Adidas sued its Swedish competitor H&M for the use of similar stripes in their sportswear line.
The Court of Arbitration considered that “a market analysis suggest that hardly anyone associates H&M’s sportswear with Adidas”, given that “only 10% of consumers” claim that there might be a confusion.
The Court also determined that the German brand should pay H&M 80 thousand euro in judicial costs, although they still have the chance to appeal the sentence at the Supreme Court in the Netherlands.
This is not the first legal defeat that Adidas incurred on the topic of their brand image: on June last year, the General Court of the European Union (GCEU) also voted against the German company, which aimed to gain exclusive rights for the three stripes logo in the whole European Union.
However, the year before, the same European court ruled in favour of the German company by denying another two shoemaking companies the use of the three parallel stripes – unless that refusal had to with the fact that the court believes the potential logo should not be exclusive property of any brand, Adidas included.