Stripping out the stripes

THE question of when is a trademark not a trademark can now be answered by adidas, which would say: “When it is two stripes and not three.”

Tired of lookie-likey, value-priced sports gear from the likes of C&A, H&M and other manufacturers, the German manufacturer took the matter to the European Court of Justice, pointing out that similar designs often feature two vertical, parallel stripes of equal width.

Judges dismissed arguments that stripe motifs should be free to be used by anyone, reported Earth Times. Instead, they found that by consumers establishing a link between the two designs it was enough to cause confusion.

It was the end of a 10-year-plus battle. Anne Putz, adidas spokeswoman, told Bloomberg: “We do not seek to prevent the use of decoration, but the use of striped markings that confuse consumers.''