Adidas Goes After Aviator Nation Over Trademark Infringement…Again
For Adidas, it’s three stripes and you’re out.
The athletic wear giant filed a legal complaint on May 1 against Aviator Nation, alleging trademark infringement and breach of contract. According to legal documents, the company believes Aviator Nation’s collection “imitates Adidas’ three-stripe mark.”
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This isn’t Adidas’ first legal go around with Aviator Nation. According to the complaint, filed in an Oregon federal court, the two have signed three separate settlement agreements—one in 2012, another in 2013 and the final in 2022—pertaining to Adidas’ trademarks.
Adidas believes that the California-based brand has violated the terms of its settlements, particularly the 2022 one. In its complaint, Adidas’ counsel contends that Aviator Nation has “continued offering for sale and selling apparel bearing confusingly similar imitations of the three-stripe mark…despite acknowledging Adidas’s rights in the famous three-stripe mark and committing (repeatedly) to stop infringing Adidas’s three-stripe mark in each of the three agreements.”
The complaint shows side-by-side images of a number of different products—sweatshirts, sweatpants and swim trunks among them—that Adidas alleges Aviator Nation sells even though the company “agreed to stop selling” them in the 2022 contract.
Furthermore, it complains that Aviator Nation has cropped up with new products that would also be prohibited under the agreement it signed. The 2022 settlement came as a result of a lawsuit Adidas filed against Aviator Nation in 2019.
Adidas alleges that some items Aviator Nation sells feature four or five stripes, but that the brand’s apparel “gives the appearance of having three stripes.”
“Aviator Nation’s current infringing apparel even emphasizes three stripes. Such apparel features five stripes down the outseam (where Adidas traditionally has placed its three-stripe mark) with three stripes that are much more prominent than the other two stripes, which are substantially similar in color to the background color of the garment and difficult to see,” the complaint alleges.
Adidas goes further to say that the brand markets its apparel to show off three stripes, hiding the fourth or fifth in photos or advertisements.
These alleged wrongdoings, Adidas contends, have been carried out “willfully, intentionally and maliciously” against Adidas because “consumers readily recognize Adidas’s three-stripe mark and uniquely associate it with Adidas.”
Adidas claims that, because the trademark is “famous” and consumers associate three stripes with its brand, “The likelihood of confusion, mistake, and deception engendered by Aviator Nation’s misappropriation of Adidas’s famous three-stripe mark is causing irreparable harm to the goodwill symbolized by the [trademark] and the reputation for quality that it embodies.”
Accordingly, it has requested the court “permanently enjoin [Aviator Nation] from distributing, marketing or selling apparel using or bearing confusingly similar imitations of the three-stripe mark” and that it rule that the company, owned by founder Paige Mycoskie, is required to give up the profits it made off the allegedly infringing items.
The German brand seems to have a hyperfixation on the clout that comes with its three-stripes trademark. It has filed dozens on dozens of other trademark-related lawsuits in the past 15 years, going after brands like J. Crew, Forever 21, Payless, Walmart, Marc Jacobs and more. In many cases, the companies have settled outside of court.
In January, it lost a stripes-related case to designer Thom Browne. Though Adidas requested a new trial, a judge denied that request on May 3.
Adidas declined to comment on the lawsuit. Aviator Nation did not return Sourcing Journal’s request for comment.
