Adidas claimed a significant legal victory last week, when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) deemed that other companies should not be allowed to use stripes on their clothing if they caused confusion among consumers and might be mistaken for the Three Stripes of Adidas.
The case was brought to the ECJ by judges at the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden, the Dutch Supreme Court, who have been scratching their heads for several years on the issue of the stripes. They were consulted at the end of a case that started several years ago between Adidas and several retailers, C&A, H&M and Vendex, which owns some Dutch department stores. They sometimes used two parallel stripes on their garments and argued that this should be regarded as a decorative feature. Adidas countered that, when used in the same width, at the same intervals and in the same places as Adidas’ stripes, they could cause confusion among consumers.
The defendants had warned that any ruling along these lines would give Adidas a monopoly on stripes, one of the most widespread features in design, and would therefore stifle creativity. However, Adidas retorted that it had no problems with other companies using stripes in general – as long as they could not be confused with Adidas’ stripes. For example, the two thin lines used by Fred Perry on some of its garments were unlikely to cause confusion, the company said.
The ECJ ruling could have been written by the Adidas legal department: "The national court must determine whether the average consumer may be mistaken as to the origin of sports and leisure garments featuring stripe motifs in the same places and with the same characteristics as the stripes motif of Adidas, except for the fact that they consist of two rather than three stripes," it read. With this ruling, the case was referred back to the Dutch Supreme Court.
Adidas stated that the decision strengthened the protection of the Three Stripes in Europe. While the ECJ opinion is not binding as such, it’s a fair bet that it will be used in hundreds of court cases in Europe over the next years – and probably also by other brands that have distinctive logo designs.
