Does adidas own three stripes? The 2019 EU ruling and the Thom Browne verdict

No, adidas does not own every version of three stripes. On June 19, 2019 the General Court of the European Union upheld the cancellation of one adidas EU trade mark made of three parallel stripes, and in 2023 a U.S. jury found that Thom Browne's four-stripe design did not infringe adidas's mark. adidas still holds other stripe rights, but the courts have drawn clear limits around the claim.

What the EU court actually cancelled

The ruling concerned one registration. According to the General Court's press release, the EU Intellectual Property Office registered the mark in 2014 for clothing, footwear and headgear. adidas had described it as "three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied on the product in any direction."

In 2016, after a request from the Belgian company Shoe Branding Europe BVBA, EUIPO annulled the registration because the mark lacked distinctive character, inherent or acquired through use. The General Court's judgment in Case T-307/17 upheld that annulment and dismissed adidas's action.

Why it failed: ordinary mark, narrow evidence

The court's reasoning has three parts, all from its own release.

• The mark is "not a pattern mark" but "an ordinary figurative mark." Pattern marks of repeating elements are judged more loosely; this one was not.
• Evidence of use that did not match the registered form could not count. The court said forms of use that "fail to respect the other essential characteristics of the mark, such as its colour scheme (black stripes against white background)" cannot be taken into account, which excluded signs with the colors reversed.
• Distinctive character acquired through use must be shown across the territory of the EU. The court found that the only evidence "to some extent, relevant relates to only five Member States and cannot, in the present case, be extrapolated to the entire territory of the EU."

adidas said at the time, as reported by Al Jazeera, that the ruling referred only to one specific version of the three-stripe logo and that other protections for the brand's stripes were unaffected. The release notes that an appeal on points of law could be brought to the Court of Justice within two months. We found no report in the sources we opened of the later outcome of an appeal, so we do not state one.

The U.S. fight: Thom Browne

In the United States, adidas America sued Thom Browne in 2021 over the designer's four-stripe motif, according to The Fashion Law (adidas America, Inc. v. Thom Browne, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-05615, S.D.N.Y.). After an eight-day trial in January 2023, the jury found that Thom Browne did not infringe or dilute adidas's three-stripe mark by selling apparel and footwear with four stripes.

adidas pursued a new trial and an appeal. Judge Jed Rakoff denied the new-trial motion, and the Second Circuit affirmed the final judgment in a ruling reported on May 3, 2024. The appeals court said adidas "cannot show an error, let alone a prejudicial one, in the district court's charge," and found no abuse of discretion in evidentiary rulings, including the exclusion of an adidas expert.

The case turned on what kind of confusion was in play. The appeals court said the trial judge instructed the jury "multiple times to confine its inquiry to initial-interest and post-sale confusion." adidas's lawyer Charles Henn said that adidas "expressly said it was not asserting confusion at the point of sale," while Thom Browne's counsel Robert Thomas Maldonado said the court made it clear this was a pre-sale and post-sale confusion case.

The timeline after the verdict

According to The Fashion Law, adidas filed its new-trial motion in October 2023 and an evidentiary hearing took place on December 21, 2023. Judge Rakoff denied the motion in a brief order, with a full opinion to follow, and the Second Circuit heard oral argument on April 17 before issuing its summary order. A summary order is the court's shorter form of ruling. The two rulings arrived within weeks of each other in spring 2024, and both went against adidas.

Two points of scope belong here. The EU decision applies to EU trade marks, which the General Court notes are valid across the whole EU and "coexist with national trade marks." The U.S. decision applies to one jury verdict on one set of products. Neither says adidas has no rights in stripes.

What this means for stripes on clothes

Trademark protection attaches to a specific mark as registered and as used, and has to be proven distinctive where it is claimed. That is why a different color scheme, a different number of stripes or a different placement can change the outcome. It is also why rights in the shoe market (where adidas has a long record) do not automatically extend to every garment.

For the labels that built their business on logos and graphics, see our guide to contemporary streetwear brands and who owns them.

Why the simplest marks are the hardest to hold

The pattern in both cases is that a very simple graphic needs very specific proof. A short stripe motif can look like decoration to a court unless the owner shows, market by market, that shoppers read it as a signature. Brands with long histories still have to produce that evidence for the exact version they registered, in the territory where they claim the right.

Our take

Treat "adidas owns three stripes" as shorthand, not law. The company owns defined marks, some of which have been tested and one of which fell. A four-stripe sweater is not a three-stripe sweater, and a U.S. jury agreed. What to watch is how courts treat simple graphic marks that rely on reputation rather than a strict registration: the evidence a brand can show, and the form it registered, decide the result.