Adidas Sprints To Block Black Lives Matter From Trademarking Three-Stripe Design
Adidas Group is doubling, tripling, trefoiling down on a trademark registration for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and it has urged the US trademark office to reject the foundation’s attempt to safeguard the use of three parallel stripes for its branding.
The sportswear giant argues that the mark brought forward by the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation—the most notable organization in the decentralized BLM campaign against police brutality—could mislead consumers as Adidas has attained “tremendous public attention” worldwide with its logo on the forefront.
Adidas says it’s been wearing its three stripes since way back in 1952. Meanwhile, BLM filed for a federal trademark of a yellow three-stripe design in November 2020 with the intent to display it on products like apparel, hats, and bags.
The German brand happens to have such wares in retail, so it has asked the trademark office to stop the organization from trademarking the use of its logo on similar goods.
On the BLM online store, some merchandise is branded as ‘Official 3 Stripe’.
According to a report by Reuters, Adidas has filed over 90 trademark complaints and signed more than 200 settlement papers over its three stripes since 2008. Prior to the lawsuit against BLM, Adidas took aim at Thom Browne and contested the designer’s four-stripe trademark. The jury took the side of Thom Browne in January.
The BLM foundation has until May 6 to respond to the motion.
Adidas has taken court action to block a trademark filed by Black Lives Matter for its "Three-Stripe" logo.
— Josh Gerben (@JoshGerben) March 28, 2023
Per the court filings made on March 27th, Adidas claims the Black Lives Matter stripes are too similar to its own.
A thread 🧵#adidas #BlackLivesMatter #BLM pic.twitter.com/S4b5YFXRdh
[via The Guardian, Reuters, The Telegraph, images via various sources]
