Not all stripes are Adidas stripes- A Judgment allowing Thom Browne to keep his stripes

The global sportwear giant Adidas has lost trademark infringement suit last week that it filed against the American fashion luxury brand, Thom Browne, Inc. This brought an end to a year and a half of a highly contested dispute regarding the issue of whether Thom Browne can keep its ‘four stripes’ on its apparels.

The genesis of the controversy date back to 2008 when Thom Browne launched its new “Four-Bar Signature”/ to not infringe upon the trademark of Adidas and to avoid any unnecessary legal battle. However, Adidas didn’t take any action against Thom Browne until 2018. Adidas claimed that it only became aware of the possible trademark infringement in 2018, when Thom Browne filed trademark application for “Grosgrain Signature”/. In 2021, Adidas sued Thom Browne for nearly $8 million in damages and profits, claiming that Thom Browne’s four stripes were infringing Adidas’ three-stripes pattern as the same is deceptively similar to Adidas’ Three-Stripe Mark. Adidas argued that they filed the present case only once Thom Browne expanded its product offerings to athletic-style apparel resulting in a direct impact on their business/market share.

Thom Browne had argued that, among other things, its designs have a different number of stripes, making it unlikely that customers would confuse it with Adidas. Their counsels also made an argument that Thom Browne caters to a very different demographic and operates at a totally different price range. For reference, a pair of women's compression tights sold by Browne retails for US$725, but the same item sold by Adidas costs less than US$100.

The Manhattan’s Southern District Court ruled in favour of Thom Browne. A Manhattan jury said Adidas had failed to show Thom Browne Inc's use of stripes on its clothing infringed the Adidas’ signature three-stripe trademark. The eight-person jury found the fashion house's parallel stripe designs were not likely to cause consumer confusion with Adidas' products, as they are capable of distinguishing between three and four parallel stripes. What was also interesting is that Adidas waited an entire decade to contest Browne's stripes design, which most likely, went against them in the present suit.

The said Judgment has created ripples in the apparel/garment industry and has inspired small scale clothing brands to not be undermined by bigger players, more so, when it comes to striped patterns.