March 29 (Reuters) – Sportswear maker Adidas AG (ADSGn.DE) on Wednesday reversed course 48 hours after asking the U.S. Trademark Workplace 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 International Community Basis’s trademark utility as quickly as attainable,” the corporate stated in a press release.
A supply near the corporate stated the fast about-turn was triggered by concern that individuals might 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 International Community Basis’s yellow-stripe design so intently resembles its personal well-known three-stripe mark that it’s “prone to trigger confusion”.
It sought to dam the group’s utility to make use of the design on items that the German sportswear maker additionally sells, comparable 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 response to media studies. Adidas’ contract with the pop star is ready to run out on the finish of this 12 months.
“LIKELY TO CAUSE CONFUSION”
Adidas stated within the submitting that it has been utilizing its emblem since 1952, and that the Black Lives Matter design might trigger confusion, making buyers suppose their items have been related or got here from the identical supply.
The Black Lives Matter International Community Basis 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 protecting 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 response to 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; Extra reporting by Helen Reid in London;
Enhancing by David Gregorio, David Holmes and Christina Fincher
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