Adidas has announced that it is withdrawing a request to the US Trademark Office to turn down a Black Lives Matter (BLM) application for a trademark including three parallel stripes.
On Monday (27 March), the sports brand claimed the BLM design would create confusion with Adidas’ own 70-years-old three-stripe design.
The sports giant has not given a reason for the apparent backtrack.
Declining to make any further comments, the company told the BBC: “Adidas will withdraw its opposition to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s trademark application as soon as possible.”
BLM originally applied for a US trademark in November 2020 for a three-stripe yellow design featured on its merchandise.
In response to the application Adidas affirmed that the BLM design incorporated “three stripes in a manner that is confusingly similar to the Three-Stripe Mark in appearance and overall commercial impression.”
The brand added that consumers “are likely to assume” that clothes displaying the same three-stripe design would “originate from the same source, or that they are affiliated, connected, or associated with or sponsored by Adidas.”
While the US Trademark Office gave the BLM Global Network Foundation until 6 May to respond to Adidas’ challenge, the sports brand’s backtrack has diffused the dispute.
Judging from reactions on Twitter, it is apparent that not appearing to align with the BLM movement would have ultimately proven to be detrimental to Adidas’ image. One person (@UsBurning) tweeted: “Adidas is sueing BLM lol we officially not wearing Adidas anymore.”
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The news comes months after Adidas lost a court case against New York fashion designer Thom Browne after the sports brand sued the designer for mimicking its stripe branding.
According to Sky News, a jury in Manhattan decided that Adidas failed to show that Thom Browne had ‘infringed’ the brand’s three-stripe design trademark.
The fashion designer’s main argument was that his branding had a different number of stripes and that stripes are a ‘common design’ element for clothing.
Adidas had reportedly planned to ask the jury for more than £6.3 million ($7.8 million) in damages, as well as punitive damages and a cut of Thom Browne’s infringing sales, according to a court filing.
