General Court EU confirms invalidity of the adidas EU trade mark which consists of three parallel stripes applied in any direction
19-06-2019 Print this pageTrade mark law - General Court EU Press Release: “[…] In today’s judgment, the General Court upholds the annulment decision, dismissing the action brought by adidas against the EUIPO decision. The General Court notes, first of all, that the mark is not a pattern mark composed of a series of regularly repetitive elements, but an ordinary figurative mark. The General Court also finds that the forms of use which fail to respect the other essential characteristics of the mark, such as its colour scheme (black stripes against white background), cannot be taken into account. Therefore, EUIPO was correct to dismiss numerous pieces of evidence produced by adidas on the ground that they concern other signs, such as, in particular, signs for which the colour scheme had been reversed (white stripes against black background).
Finally, the General Court notes that EUIPO did not commit an error of assessment in finding that adidas had not proved that the mark at issue had been used throughout the territory of the European Union and that it had acquired, in the whole of that territory, distinctive character following the use which had been made of it. From the evidence produced by adidas, the only evidence which is, to some extent, relevant relates to only five Member States and cannot, in the present case, be extrapolated to the entire territory of the EU.”
Read the full press release here.