IP News
Three stripes: Adidas loses legal dispute over its logo
Dr. Carsten Albrecht talks to Handelsblatt
In a ruling issued by the EU General Court, the sporting goods manufacturer Adidas has lost part of its Three Stripes trade mark rights and cannot claim comprehensive brand protection for its famous logo in the EU. The corporation had attempted to obtain Europe-wide protection for all possible designs and variations of its three-stripe logo at the European Union Intellectual Property Office. The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg declared the trade mark to be null and void in a judgment published on Wednesday. However, the extensive EU trade mark rights for the three stripes in different forms remains unaffected. The judgment of the General Court is an important one for trade mark experts, because is redefines and confirms certain guidelines that are of major significance for proof of secondary meaning of EU trade marks, trade mark expert Dr. Carsten Albrecht from FPS’s Frankfurt office told Handelsblatt.