Adidas monopolizes strips

The German concern once again defended its rights to a three-way logo

Rospatent approved Adidas International Marketing BV’s application to annul the Turkish shoe company’s trademark rights, elements of which duplicate the well-known logo in the form of three stripes. The company has repeatedly sued manufacturers of clothes and shoes, whose logos can be associated with buyers with Adidas, and each time won the proceedings.

The Chamber of Patent Disputes of Rospatent last Friday invalidated the provision of legal protection for the trademark of the Turkish company Intermar Simanto Nahmias, which sold Jump brand shoes in Russia. The logo that the company owned since 2006 of the year is a composition of a circle and three stripes located next to each other, which, according to Adidas, create a false impression on the consumer regarding the manufacturer of the goods.

As noted in the decision of the Patent Office, a trademark is considered false if at least one of its elements misleads the buyer about its origin. “The presence in the contested trademark of a geometric figure in the form of a circle as a whole does not affect the general conclusion about the similarity,” the document says. In a statement, the German company cites the history of the creation of the 3 Strip logo, as well as a number of court cases in which the Turkish manufacturer was prohibited from using the trademark.

The head of Intermar Simanto Nahmias, Simanto Nahimas, together with Tatyana Injebay, owns Jump Russia, which in 2005 began selling Turkish Jump shoes on the Russian market. In 2008, the company produced sneakers under the Jump & Shnurov brand together with the ex-leader of the Leningrad group, Sergei Shnurov. According to the data in the SPARK system, Tatyana Injebay is also the founder of CrossWay, which today produces and sells children's shoes under the Kakadu brand. Head of CrossWay on Monday was not available for comment, a company representative could not name the details of the release of Jump shoes, noting that "this story has been a long time."

Adidas regularly sues companies that use three strips in their product designs. Among them are Russian shoe manufacturers CenterObuv and Alba Corporation (brand ALBA). According to Alba Corporation, the company is now starting to pay Adidas structures a fine of 250 thousand rubles for using three strips as part of the production of one of the shoe models.

“We had three stripes, but they were the direct elements of the shoes that made up the model itself. According to Adidas, they resembled their logo. Nevertheless, during the trial we managed to reduce the amount of the penalty by 10 times, so we actually won the case, ”said Artem Eganyan, head of the legal department of the company. He noted that this was an isolated case, and a batch of shoes with three stripes was practically not implemented. Representatives of Adidas were unable to promptly comment, Izvestia newspaper reported.