Recently, Adidas AG filed a lawsuit claiming that the “four-stripe” logo used on Sanya Hero Dojo’s sports shoes infringed its registered “three-stripe” trademark, therefore requesting the defendant to cease trademark infringement and pay a compensation of 50,000 RMB for Adidas’ economic loss.
After examination, the court held that the “four-stripe” logo used by the defendant distinguishes itself from Adidas’ “three-stripe” trademark not only by the one more stripe of the logo, but also by the Chinese character“道”printed at the tongue of the shoes and the symbol of “Tai Chi” at the heel. Therefore no confusion is caused among consumers by the overall and partial designs of the shoes. Furthermore, these shoes were specially used for taekwondo.
