Adidas is taking legal action against Fashion Nova – again, this time alleging that the California-based fast-fashion retailer is not only infringing its famous three-stripe trademark but is blatantly ignoring their previous settlement agreements that prohibit it from doing so. In the new lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on March 4, adidas accuses Fashion Nova of trademark infringement, counterfeiting, dilution, and unfair competition. Adidas is also accusing Fashion Nova of breaching a legally-binding agreement to “stop manufacturing, marketing, or selling any product bearing the three-stripe mark or any design, mark, or feature confusingly similar to it.”
In the newly-filed complaint, adidas claims that it previously sued Fashion Nova back in 2019 on trademark grounds, resulting in a settlement agreement in 2022. Under the terms of that agreement, Fashion Nova acknowledged adidas’s rights in the three-stripe mark and agreed to cease all production, marketing, and sales of infringing products. Despite this agreement, adidas maintains that Fashion Nova has resumed selling apparel and footwear bearing stripe designs that are confusingly similar to – and thus, infringe upon – its three-stripe mark.
Adidas asserts that Fashion Nova’s continued sale of infringing products not only breaches the 2022 agreement but also constitutes intentional counterfeiting and unfair competition, Fashion Nova’s conduct is likely to cause confusion among consumers and deceive the public into believing that Fashion Nova’s products are affiliated with or endorsed by adidas, according to the sportswear giant. The complaint further alleges that Fashion Nova’s actions are causing irreparable harm to adidas’s brand reputation.
With the foregoing in mind, adidas is seeking a permanent injunction barring Fashion Nova from selling the allegedly infringing products, along with monetary damages, including statutory and punitive damages. Adidas is also demanding an accounting of Fashion Nova’s profits from the sale of disputed products and treble damages due to what it characterizes as willful and intentional infringement.
The Two-Stripe Question
One of the most interesting aspects of adidas’ complaint is the Fashion Nova designs that adidas claims are infringing. While adidas points to apparel that features three-stripes down the sides of shirts and pants, which amounts to obvious infringement of adidas’ three-stripe marks, the bulk of the allegedly problematic Fashion Nova designs highlighted in adidas’ complaint are actually tops and pants emblazoned with two alternating-color stripe designs. There are arguments to be made about whether adidas’ trademark rights extend to these uses of stripes (which arguably look more like two stripes than three).
> And speaking of two stripes, the most interesting use of two stripes by Fashion Nova is on a couple of sneaker styles, which pretty clearly aim to mirror adidas’ hot-selling Sambas, and thus, very well could give rise to claims of trade dress infringement by adidas aside from the stripes-centric trademark claims.
Adidas’s rights in the three-stripe mark for use on apparel, footwear, sporting goods, etc. have been well-established in court, but whether this protection extends to designs with fewer – or more – than three stripes is another matter and one that occupies something of a legal gray area. Courts have ruled in adidas’s favor in the past in cases involving similar two-stripe designs, arguing that the resemblance to adidas’s famous three-stripe mark could still lead to consumer confusion. At the same time, other courts have interpreted adidas’s rights in stripes in a more narrow manner and have refused to side with adidas in cases where the allegedly-infringing-use of stripes diverges from adidas’ three-stripe mark.
In addition to there being questions with regard to the extent of adidas’ rights, there are also questions to consider about whether consumers seeing the allegedly infringing Fashion Nova designs would view the stripes as indicators of source – or instead, would view them as common decorative elements that do not serve a trademark function.
It is worth noting that even if Fashion Nova can successfully argue that its use of these stripe motifs falls outside of the bounds of adidas’ rights, it may not be in the clear from a contract perspective, as adidas alleges that in furtherance of the parties’ 2022 settlement, Fashion Nova agreed to cease it sale of similar goods. As such, its subsequent sales of lookalike products amounts to a breach of that contract.
The case is adidas America, Inc. v. Fashion Nova, LLC, 2:25-cv-01878 (C.D. Cal.).
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