Adidas backtracks on opposition to Black Lives Matter trademark request
Adidas has withdrawn a request to US authorities to block the Black Lives Matter movement from trademarking a design featuring three parallel stripes.
The German sportswear company had said in a filing on Monday that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation design would create confusion with the famous branding Adidas had been using for more than 70 years.
However, on Wednesday Adidas made an abrupt U-turn dropping its opposition to the BLMGNF trademark application.
“Adidas will withdraw its opposition to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s trademark application as soon as possible,” a spokesperson said, without offering an explanation for the decision.
BLMGNF was founded after the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin was shot by the neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in 2012 and rose to prominence during the global movement of protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020.
In November 2020 the group applied for a US trademark for a yellow three-stripe design, which it said could be for use on branded merchandise such as clothing, publications, bags, bracelets and mugs.
In Monday’s notice of opposition submitted to the trademark office, Adidas said the proposed BLMGNF design “incorporates three stripes in a manner that is confusingly similar to the three-stripe mark in appearance and overall commercial impression”.
The German manufacturer said it had used its three-stripe logo from as early as 1952, and that the design had since gained “international fame and tremendous public recognition”.
The company added that consumers familiar with its goods and services “are likely to assume” that those offered under the applicant’s mark “originate from the same
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