According to court documents, Adidas claims White Fox replicated its trademark across multiple items of clothing and advertising content featuring four parallel stripes of equal width in a colour contrasting with the clothing. The sportswear giant says it has used the three-stripe mark in Australia for more than 65 years and globally for more than 75 years.
White Fox has promoted and supplied the four-stripe garments since March this year, including on buses, bus stops and social media. Court documents say Adidas asked White Fox to remove the garments from sale and stop using the design in March, and White Fox declined. Adidas also alleges the retailer used genuine Adidas shoes in the same colours as its clothing in some promotional material, which it says took advantage of its reputation and may lead consumers to draw an association between the two companies.
White Fox is defending the case, which will go to court hearings next year. Appearing in court on Friday, the retailer's barrister Ed Heerey KC said White Fox would argue the four stripes were simply decorative rather than a trademark, pointing to similar striped items sold by Princess Polly, Glassons and Shein.
Intellectual property law expert Muhammad Abbas, a lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, said the case was not just about a fourth stripe. "Adding a stripe is neither a complete answer to a trademark claim nor automatically an infringement," he said, citing a 2023 High Court decision on the impression a notional buyer, "allowing for imperfect recollection", would have of a registered trademark. "Counting stripes is only the start."
The three-stripe design dates to Adidas's foundation in 1949 but was not trademarked until 1952, after the company discovered Finnish brand Karhu had trademarked the same logo. Founder Adolf Dassler secured the design in a deal involving two bottles of whiskey.