On Tuesday, a court determined that Nike was allowed to utilise three stripes on some of its pant designs in Germany during a second appeal hearing that featured the American sportswear maker versus its smaller rival Adidas.
Adidas filed a complaint alleging trademark infringement in 2022, and as a result, the American corporation was already prohibited from using two or three stripes on five of its pant designs by the Duesseldorf regional court.
The previous verdict was partially overturned by the court, which decided that Nike could now use the stripes on four of the contested models, but that the ban still applied to the one remaining model. Adidas fiercely defends its well-known trademark—the three parallel stripes—in numerous courts across the world.
However, the German corporation decided to drop their legal challenge against Black Lives Matter’s yellow three-stripe emblem a year ago due to concerns that their resistance would be seen as a criticism of the anti-racism organisation.
