NY Court Puts Adidas v. Thom Browne to Rest, Denying New Trial

Adidas has officially lost another stripe-centric lawsuit.

Jed S. Rakoff, a New York judge, has finally put Adidas‘ trademark infringement claims against menswear designer Thom Browne to bed.

The lengthy legal battle centered around select pieces of the Thom Browne athletic wear line that featured four stripes. In 2023, a court found Thom Browne not liable for trademark infringement; shortly after, the German company appealed the decision in the Second Circuit. That court upheld the prior court’s decision in May.

But for Adidas, an instant motion for relief from judgment may have been a Hail Mary. The company filed its motion over four emails that it said could have changed its entire argument in the case. The four emails, which it alleged were hidden during the discovery process in the case, were internal messages mentioning Adidas.

Because of those emails, Adidas requested a new trial. A court denied that motion on May 3, and on Monday, Rakoff re-confirmed that decision in New York’s Southern District.

Several of the emails focus around a collection the menswear line did with F.C. Barcelona (FCB) and insinuated that the team did not want to include stripes on the garments so as not to come to close to Adidas’ likeness.

But for Rakoff, Adidas’ argument over the emails wasn’t nearly compelling enough.

Ultimately, the judge ruled that, “The four emails, while not irrelevant, hardly seem material to the central issues in this case as they actually played out at trial,” later stating in his opinion that, during the trial, Adidas presented results from a consumer-facing survey asking whether customers confused the Thom Browne items for Adidas items. Though “somewhere between 14 percent and 38.6 percent were confused,” per those survey results, the jury did not find in favor of Adidas.

The issue of whether consumers would have reasonably been confused was far more at issue than whether “a few individuals at Thom Browne and FCB [considered] that there was a risk of confusion,” Rakoff said.

He argued that what Adidas presented to jurors during the trial would have been more compelling as evidence of potential consumer confusion than what Thom Browne staffers had to say.

“If the jury was willing to believe that there was a risk of confusion between the two marks, the views of these actual consumers would presumably have been far more powerful than the views expressed in the four emails,” the judge wrote.

Rakoff also noted that Thom Browne’s counsel argued that the brands differed significantly when it came to price, quality and intended use. Those arguments, he said, helped jurors inform their decision.

“Even though the trial lasted eight days and included the testimony of 16 witnesses and the introduction of over 400 exhibits, the jury returned a verdict for Thom Browne in approximately two hours. This swift verdict shows that the jury was totally unpersuaded by virtually any of the proof or argument Adidas presented at trial, and it is frankly impossible to conclude under these circumstances that these four emails here at issue would have probably tipped the scales in its favor,” he wrote in his decision.

The judgment ends a years-long legal battle between the two brands, but Thom Browne certainly isn’t the only brand facing scorn from Adidas over trademarks. The company, like several others in the industry, has a reputation for lawsuits any time a product comes close to one of theirs.

An Adidas spokesperson said the company will continue to protect its trademarks.

“We are disappointed with the decision, but Adidas has broad trademark protection for its well-known 3-Stripes mark in various forms. [This] decision does not change this. Adidas continues to own a wide range of trademark registrations for the 3-Stripes mark which remain unaffected by this decision. We will continue to vigorously defend all our trademark registrations globally,” the spokesperson said.

And indeed, Adidas does defend its trademarks globally. Ithas targeted companies like Aviator Nation, J. Crew and LIV Golf in recent years. In its legal proceedings, the company has always tried to play the long game—with appeals for losses, motions like the ones in this case and more. In one such trademark case, which Adidas filed against H&M, legal proceedings went on for 24 years in Dutch courts. H&M officially won the case in 2021.

It seems many companies have had enough of the stripes saga. As Thom Browne’s counsel said in his closing argument at trial, “This case isn’t about confusion. It isn’t about competition. It’s about whether Adidas can own all stripes.”

Thom Browne did not immediately return Sourcing Journal’s request for comment on the judge’s decision.