Adidas is again suing market players, this time in the U.S., that are suspected of copying the company's Three Stripes trademark. The latest is a trademark infringement suit against Wolverine Worldwide in the federal court of Portland, Oregon. The company is accusing WWW of “blatant disregard” of its intellectual property rights by designing, producing and distributing “confusingly similar two-, three- and four-stripe imitations” of its Three Stripes in Merrell, Caterpillar and Hush Puppies footwear styles. A few days earlier, Adidas filed another complaint in Portland against World Industries and Big 5 Sporting Goods, a chain of more than 400 stores throughout the country. World Industries is charged of having offered sneakers with three stripes alleged to be similar to those that stand for the Adidas brand, and Big 5 is accused of offering them to the general public. The German company has already fought various other similar quarrels on trademark infringement in the U.S. and elsewhere, for example against the Wal-Mart and Payless chains.

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