Update (09:50) Sportswear giant Adidas has withdrawn its request to the US Trademark Office to ban Black Lives Matter from using the three yellow stripes as the Foundation’s logo.

Initially, Adidas claimed that Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc’s yellow stripe design would create confusion with its own well-known brand. The German company said it has been using its logo since 1952 and has gained “international fame and huge public recognition”.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is the most visible organization of the Black Lives Matter movement, which emerged ten years ago with a major demand to end police brutality against black people.

In November 2020, the organization applied for a federal trademark with a three-stripe yellow design for use on a variety of products, including apparel, publications, bags, bracelets, and mugs.

Adidas said in a statement Monday that the group’s design was confusingly similar to its logo and that consumers are likely to believe their products are related to or from the same source.

Legal defeat by Tom Brown

The company has filed more than 90 lawsuits and signed more than 200 settlements related to the three-stripe trademark since 2008, according to court documents in a lawsuit the company filed against Thom Browne’s fashion house.

Adidas lost a lawsuit trying to stop a fashion designer from using the four horizontal stripes design, which has become a trademark mostly on the brand’s socks.

The sporting goods giant said the four stripes of luxury brand Thom Browne Inc. they were very similar to the three stripes of Adidas. For his part, designer Tom Brown argued that customers were unlikely to confuse the two brands, mainly due to … different numbers on the stripes.

However, according to the BBC, the designer’s legal team believed that he would lose in a legal dispute, as he put up with the giant company.

Source: Guardian, BBC.