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The EU General Court in Luxembourg on June 19, 2019, limited the reach of sportswear giant Adidas’s iconic trademark. Adidas AG v. European Union Intellectual Property Office, E.G.C, Case T-307/17.

Adidas secured the registration in 2014 covering “three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width” anywhere on shoes, clothes or headgear. Belgian company Shoe Branding Europe BVBA challenged the mark, which the EU Intellectual Property Office canceled in 2016. The EUIPO’s appeals board upheld the decision.

Adidas argued that the board mistakenly limited the mark to its graphic depiction showing black stripes on white background, with rectangular angles at the ends and a roughly 5-to-1 length-to-width ratio. But the court rejected its effort to interpret the mark as the three stripes of any length, including shown at a slant.