Adidas retracts opposition to Black Lives Matter three-stripe design
Sportswear maker Adidas on Wednesday reversed course 48 hours after asking the U.S. Trademark Office to reject a Black Lives Matter utility for a trademark that includes three parallel stripes.
“Adidas will withdraw its opposition to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s trademark application as soon as possible,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement.
A supply near the corporate mentioned the fast about-turn was triggered by concern that individuals may misread Adidas’ trademark objection as criticism of Black Lives Matter’s mission.
Adidas had advised the trademark workplace in a Monday submitting that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s yellow-stripe design so carefully resembles its personal well-known three-stripe mark that it’s “likely to cause confusion.”
It sought to dam the group’s utility to make use of the design on items that the German sportswear maker additionally sells, akin to shirts, hats and luggage.
Adidas is struggling financially after ending its profitable Yeezy shoe partnership with Kanye West over antisemitic feedback he made on social media and in interviews.
The sportswear agency has additionally ended its Ivy Park collaboration with Beyoncé in accordance with media stories. Adidas’ contract with the pop star is ready to run out on the finish of this 12 months.
‘LIKELY TO CAUSE CONFUSION’
Adidas mentioned within the submitting that it has been utilizing its emblem since 1952, and that the Black Lives Matter design may trigger confusion, making buyers assume their items have been related or got here from the identical supply.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is probably the most outstanding entity within the decentralized Black Lives Matter motion, which arose a decade in the past in protest in opposition to police violence in opposition to Black folks.
The group utilized for a federal trademark in November 2020 masking a yellow three-stripe design to make use of on a wide range of merchandise together with clothes, publications, luggage, bracelets and mugs.
Representatives of the Black Lives Matter group didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
Adidas has filed over 90 lawsuits and signed greater than 200 settlement agreements associated to the three-stripe trademark since 2008, in accordance with court docket paperwork from a lawsuit the corporate introduced in opposition to designer Thom Browne’s trend home.
A jury in that case determined in January that Thom Browne’s stripe patterns didn’t violate Adidas’ trademark rights.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Additional reporting by Helen Reid in London;Editing by David Gregorio, David Holmes and Christina Fincher)
