Skech Took Adidas To Court. Two Major Sports Players Fought In The US Court.

Skech and Adidas fought again.

After being accused of patent infringement on "three bars" by Adidas, Skech filed a lawsuit against the federal court in February 8th, claiming that the German campaign brand was unreasonable and urged the court to dismiss the allegations.

Cage's lawyer said earlier that Adidas instructed the outside attorney to issue a letter entitled "infringement notice", claiming that Cage was suspected of patent infringement and demanded that the production, distribution, advertising and sales processes of the relevant products be stopped immediately.

Adidas believes that the design of Skech's shoes is similar to its "three bars" classic logo, which is suspected of infringement.

At the same time, the German brand asked Cage to provide sales data to appropriately determine the amount of compensation requirements.

Cage chose to see the court.

The brand's lawyer retorts that Adidas's "three bar" trademark can only be protected by the patent law narrowly. The shoe involved in this lawsuit has visual differences in design and logo, which is enough to prevent consumers from being confused.

To this end, Cage's lawyer provided a more than 60 page document showing other similar styles of shoes, including international brands such as Marc Jacobs, Gucci and Tory Burch.

Three parallel stripes are the classic signs of Adidas.

Since 1952, the company's founder, Adi Dassler, has designed its products, and the "three bars" have become the iconic patterns of German brands. Almost all products have traces of this design.

In recent years, Adidas has launched a "three bar" battle in the world.

Besides Cage, Ecco, Marc Jacobs, Tesla, PUMA and Forever 21 have been prosecuted by Adidas for violating the "three bars" trademark.

From the result, the Oregon court of the United States basically supported the litigation of Adidas.

For Adidas's tough attitude over the years, Frankfurt trademark lawyer Craig Whitney claims that unlike Nike's logo and Louis Vuitton's LV printing, Adidas's logo is very concise. Once there are too many similar signs on the market, the three bars will become mediocre and not bright enough.

In fact, this is not the first time Adidas and Skech have made tit for tat in court.

In September 2015, Adidas accused Cage of Onix's shoes, plagiarizing their classic shoes Stan Smith.

In view of the popularity of Stan Smith in the world, Adidas won the lawsuit.

In July 2016, the German brand sued Cage for designing the concept of illegal plagiarizing sports shoes, and thought that his Mega Blade shoes intentionally infringed the design patent of his own blade series (Springblade).

In the end, the federal court dismissed Adidas's allegations on the grounds that the evidence was not convincing.

In May 2018, Cage launched a counterattack, accusing Adidas of providing hundreds of thousands of dollars of "benefits" to the relevant members of the US university basketball team and the family members of the players, prompting the players to sign the equipment agreement with the brand, causing Cage to be in an unfair competition environment.

The two major sports players frequently fought in the US courts, behind which was a sharp confrontation in the market share of sports shoes.

At present, Cage and Adidas are two of the fastest growing brands of sneakers in the world.

Skech's newly released 2018 financial year report shows that the year-on-year sales increased by 11.5% to 4 billion 640 million US dollars, reaching a record high.

Among them, international business grew by 19.2%, and the United States grew by 3.5%.

Skech expects global sales in the first quarter of 2019 to be between $1 billion 275 million and $1 billion 300 million, much higher than analysts estimate.

Adidas's latest 2018 fiscal year three quarter financial report shows that global sales grew 8% to 5 billion 873 million euros, and net profit increased 25% to 659 million euros over the same period.

Sales growth in the Asia Pacific region reached 15%.

The North American market has recorded a growth of 16%.

Next, whether in court or in the world's largest North American sports market, Skech and Adidas will continue to face a tough battle.