Adidas has lost a legal battle over what it thought was an infringement of its three-stripe logo. It made a complaint against the American fashion brand Thom Browne, which uses a four-stripe logo. Adidas said the four stripes were too similar to its three stripes. It filed a lawsuit and claimed $7.8 million in damages. However, a New York jury decided in Thom Browne's favour. It said the four stripes did not infringe on Adidas' logo. It added that consumers were unlikely to confuse the two brands, as they were capable of distinguishing between different numbers of stripes.
Thom Browne was founded in 2001. It creates high-end clothing and has collaborated with many top names in the luxury fashion business. In 2020, it designed a scarf as part of Joe Biden's "Believe in Better" fashion collection. The dispute with Adidas goes back 16 years. Browne used a three-stripe design on a jacket in 2007. After Adidas protested, Browne switched to four stripes. Browne said confusion between the two designs was unlikely because the two companies "operate in different markets, serve different customers, and offer their products at strikingly different prices".
Try the same news story at these levels:
Company Logos - Level 4 or Company Logos - Level 6
Sources- https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/adidas-thom-browne-verdict/index.html
- https://www.ndtv.com/feature/adidas-loses-stripe-trademark-battle-to-luxury-designer-thom-browne-3690735
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64261616
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)