Adidas and the Three-Stripes Trademark Battles

On 19 June 2019 the EU General Court confirmed that one adidas three-stripe registration was invalid. The brand did not vanish, and nor did its other marks. What fell was a single registration, and the reason it fell is the useful part.

Key takeaways

• The case was adidas AG v EUIPO, Case T-307/17, decided by the General Court on 19 June 2019.
• The registration covered three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied in any direction.
• The Court held it was an ordinary figurative mark, not a pattern mark, so its scope was narrow.
• Evidence of reversed colours, white stripes on black, was discounted as a different sign.
• Proof covering only five member states could not be stretched across the whole European Union.
• EU marks coexist with national marks, and Nepal has neither — every right here is filed here.
• Our index of more than 120 bulletin issues returns no published entry naming adidas, an IP Sewa count.

What is the adidas three-stripe mark?

It is a visual sign rather than a word: parallel stripes used on shoes, sleeves and bags. It sits alongside the adidas wordmark and the trefoil, which are separate marks.

In Nepali terms, Sec. 2(c) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 says a trade-mark is a word, symbol or picture, or a combination of them, used to distinguish one business's goods from another's.

A stripe arrangement can qualify under that wording. Whether a particular arrangement actually does is a question of evidence, not of geometry.

Is three stripes copyrighted or trademarked?

Trademarked, and the distinction matters. Every adidas stripe dispute that gets reported is a trade mark dispute about who a sign points to, not a copyright dispute about who authored a drawing.

The two rights answer different questions. A trade mark asks whether buyers read the sign as coming from one business; copyright asks whether something is an original work, and a plain geometric arrangement is an awkward fit.

In Nepal they also live in different statutes: marks in the 1965 Act, copyright in a separate Act of 2002. IP Sewa works on the industrial property side and does not file copyright, so put any copyright question to a lawyer.

What happened to the adidas EU registration?

It was registered, challenged and cancelled, over five years. The European Union Intellectual Property Office registered the mark in 2014 for clothing, footwear and headwear.

In 2016, after an application for a declaration of invalidity by a Belgian company, that office annulled the registration for want of distinctive character, both inherent and acquired through use.

In 2019 the General Court dismissed adidas's action and upheld the annulment. Reported carefully, that is the whole outcome: one registration, in one system, set aside.

Why did the court call it an ordinary figurative mark?

Because of how it had been described. adidas had filed it as three parallel equidistant stripes of identical width, applied on the product in any direction.

The Court found that this was not a pattern mark made of regularly repeating elements, but an ordinary figurative mark: one picture, fixed as filed.

That single finding narrowed everything that followed, because a narrow mark can only be supported by evidence of the narrow thing.

Why did reversed colours not count as use?

This is the detail worth carrying into your own filing. The mark as registered was black stripes on a white background.

The Court held that forms of use failing to respect the mark's other essential characteristics, including its colour scheme, could not be taken into account, so evidence showing white stripes on black concerned a different sign.

A great deal of adidas's material was set aside for that reason. The registration defined what counted as proof, and much of the real-world use fell outside it.

Does that mean anyone can use three stripes?

No, and it would be careless to read it that way. The judgment concerned one registration's validity, not whether any given product infringes anything.

Large brands typically hold families of marks across many systems, and the press notice for this judgment records expressly that European Union marks coexist with national marks.

The safe reading is narrower and more useful: a device mark is only as strong as the version you registered and the evidence you can produce for it.

Does the European decision apply in Nepal?

Not at all. Trade mark rights are territorial, and a European tribunal's view of a European registration decides nothing about Nepali rights.

Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so a foreign registration cannot be extended here either. Sec. 21B is blunt about it: a mark registered abroad has no force in Nepal unless it is registered in Nepal.

Nepal is also first-to-file in practice, so an earlier application here beats earlier use abroad. What travels is the reasoning, not the ruling.

Does adidas have published marks in Nepal?

Not in our index. Across more than 120 Industrial Property Bulletin issues we index, we find no published entry naming adidas as applicant, while Nike appears 27 times and Puma three.

Read that carefully, because it proves less than it looks. Our index holds marks published in the Bulletin; it does not show filed-but-unpublished applications, current registration status, or a filing made under a different corporate name.

It is an IP Sewa count, not an official Department of Industry statistic. Check any owner yourself with the published trademark search before drawing a conclusion.

How common are device-only marks in Nepal?

Rare. Of the 2,689 published Class 25 entries in our index, 1,846 pair a word with a logo and 658 are word-only.

Only 185, about seven in a hundred, are pure device marks with no word at all. Across the whole register the share is smaller still, at roughly four in a hundred.

So a stripe-only mark would be an unusual filing here, and unusual filings attract questions. Pairing the device with a distinctive word is both commoner and easier to defend.

Which classes does a clothing brand need in Nepal?

More than one, almost always, because the NICE Classification splits a fashion range across several boxes and Sec. 18A(2) allows one class per application.

Note that the current heading says headwear, not headgear, which is worth copying exactly. Use the class finder for anything the table does not answer.

How do you register a stripe or device mark in Nepal?

The same way as a word mark, through the Department of Industry, but with much more care taken over the picture itself.

1. Settle the exact artwork. Fix the number of stripes, their width, spacing, angle and colours before you file anything.
2. Decide whether to claim colour. As the European case shows, a colour scheme you claim is a characteristic you then have to prove.
3. Search visually as well as verbally. Run the name through the conflict checker, then browse the class with marks by class.
4. Consider pairing the device with a word. That is what nine in ten Nepali clothing filings do.
5. File one application per class. Clothing, bags and sporting goods are three classes, so at least three filings.
6. Answer the examination. The Department may raise distinctiveness or an earlier mark before it accepts the application.

What should the representation look like?

Precise, and identical to what goes on the product. The image you file is the thing that will later be compared with a rival's product.

A vague sketch invites a narrow reading. A clean, accurate representation, at the proportions you actually print, gives the examiner and any later decision-maker something definite to work with.

Keep the same file for packaging, signage and the application. Our guide to registering a logo goes through the practicalities.

What documents does the Department need?

A Nepali applicant supplies the prescribed application, a clean representation of the mark and papers showing ownership, such as a board resolution.

A foreign applicant files through a Nepal-based representative appointed by power of attorney, because there is no route into Nepal from an international register.

A Paris Convention priority claim needs the certified earlier filing. The full list is in our note on documents for a trademark application.

What happens after the mark is accepted?

It is published. Section 21A has accepted marks appear in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which is the point at which a rights holder elsewhere can object.

A published trade mark can be opposed within an opposition window of 90 days from publication; rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.

If an objection is coming, this is when it arrives. If none succeeds, the registration certificate follows, and our opposition and enforcement service handles both sides of that.

How long does the registration last?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D, and the clock runs from registration rather than from the day you filed.

The renewal term under Sec. 23B may be repeated any number of times for a trade mark, so a clothing brand can hold a device mark indefinitely if the dates are kept.

Section 18C also allows cancellation, after inquiry, where the mark has not been used within one year of registration. A device filed and never printed is exposed.

Should a pattern be a trade mark or an industrial design?

It depends what you are protecting. A trade mark protects a sign that tells buyers who made the goods, and it can run indefinitely while it is renewed.

An industrial design protects the appearance of a product itself, and the Act gives it a shorter term. The Department registers both, under the same statute.

For a recurring brand motif a trade mark usually fits better; for the shape of one new shoe, a design may. Our industrial design service covers the second route.

What if your design is too close to a famous one?

Change it before you print, not after. Sec. 18 lets the Department refuse a mark that would damage the goodwill of another person's mark or that is already registered to someone else.

Adding your own distinctive word helps, but it does not licence a product decoration that buyers would still read as somebody else's. Confusion is judged on the overall impression.

Uneven geometry, an unusual emblem or a motif drawn from your own story is both safer and better branding. Our note on confusingly similar marks sets out how the comparison is made.

Common mistakes

• Filing a sketch rather than the artwork. The image you file is the image you can enforce.
• Claiming a colour scheme casually. A claimed characteristic becomes something you must prove.
• Assuming a famous mark is unbeatable. A registration can be famous and still be set aside.
• Reading a foreign result as a local rule. Rights are territorial and Nepal is a separate filing.
• Searching only the brand name. Visual similarity does not show up in a text search.
• Filing Class 25 alone. Bags, sporting goods and your own shop are different classes.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Kathmandu activewear label called "Himal Trackwear" plans bold side stripes on shoes and sleeves, plus backpacks and its own shop.

The stripes are the risk. Even with an original name, a decoration that reads as another sportswear brand's can attract an objection, and a small colour change is not an answer.

A better move is a motif nobody else could have reached: an asymmetric ridge line, filed as artwork alongside the word, at the exact proportions used on the garment.

Then count the classes. Clothing is 25, the backpacks are 18 and the shop is 35, which is three applications under Sec. 18A(2) before anything is manufactured.

In short

A very famous sign lost a registration because of how that registration had been described and evidenced, not because the sign was unknown.

For a Nepali founder the transferable lesson is small and practical: file the artwork you actually use, think before claiming a colour, pair the device with a word, and count your classes.

Everything legal about your position here comes from a Nepali filing. The Act is published by the Nepal Law Commission, the classification by WIPO, and applications are decided by the Department of Industry.

The wider brand-protection picture is in intellectual property law in Nepal, and the sister story of another fashion house is in the Louis Vuitton disputes.

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Send us the artwork and the product list, and we will say what is already published and how many classes the range needs. Start with trademark registration, or put the design to us through contact before the first sample is cut.