Adidas withdraws complaint over Black Lives Matter logo

Sportswear giant Adidas announced on Wednesday that it planned to drop a trademark complaint against the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM) following an outcry.

“Adidas will withdraw its opposition … as soon as possible,” a company spokesman said, without further explanation.

The German company had filed the complaint two days earlier with the US trademark office, citing BLM’s 2020 application to register three yellow stripes in its logo. Adidas argued that this design was too close to its famous three-stripe design.

Adidas’ lawyers wrote in the lawsuit that it has used its logo at least since 1952 and that it has achieved “international fame and tremendous public recognition”. The company said consumers would “probably assume” that the BLM shirts and other merchandise were licensed Adidas products.

A court case with fashion house Thom Browne in January found that Adidas had filed more than 90 lawsuits related to its logo since 2008. Adidas lost the lawsuit over Thom Browne’s four-stripe design.

Critics accused Adidas of being overly litigious and targeting a group founded to defend a minority group against the threat of violence.

BLM Global has become the best-known face of a primarily decentralized movement to protest police brutality and other forms of violence against Black communities, both in the US and around the world. It gained a special boost after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Some black activists have expressed concern about how BLM Global uses the funds it raises and how it positions itself as the movement’s definitive voice.

e/sms (Reuters, dpa)