adidas AG (OTCQX:ADDYY) has asked the US Trademark Office to reject an application for a Black Lives Matter (BLM) trademark which also features three parallel stripes.
The German sportswear giant said the BLM Global Network Foundation design would create confusion with its own three-stripe mark.
BLM Global Network Foundation is a separate entity within the decentralised BLM movement and applied for a US trademark in 2020.
The design featured a yellow three-stripe logo to use in merchandise, including clothing and bags.
Adidas said the proposed design “incorporates three stripes in a manner that is confusingly similar to the Three-Stripe Mark in appearance and overall commercial impression,” quoted in Yahoo News.
The company claimed that consumers are “likely to assume” that products offered under BLM’s logo “originate from the same source, or that they’re affiliated, connected, or associated with or sponsored by Adidas.”
In January this year, Adidas failed in a similar case against luxury brand Thom Browne for using a four-stripe design.
Documents used in that case showed Adidas launched over 90 lawsuits and signed more than 200 settlement agreements related to its trademark since 2008.