Adidas Will Sue All The Brands That Plagiarize Yeezy Boosts

German sports brand Adidas He has been committed to protecting the design of Kanye West, and recently warned that he would sue all brands that plagiarize Yeezy Boosts.

Third rate shoe brands and fast fashion retailers, such as Forever 21, have continuously received fierce criticism letters from Adidas, asking them to stop production and sales and cooperate with Adidas Yeezy Boost 750 Similar gym shoes In addition, Modern Vice, a New York shoe brand, imitated the Boosts style, but replaced the velvet vamp with an exotic python skin. Then Adidas threatened to sue it.

However, some people in the industry expressed different views on Adidas' design rights. Adidas lacks patent protection for Boost style designs, and the property rights protection law provides limited protection in this case, because shoes are practical goods, and the copyright law does not protect the entire practical entity, so it can only be assumed that Adidas relies on its trade appearance, However, it seems that adidas has very weak rights to initiate legal proceedings against unregistered trade dress.

Trade dress is a kind of trademark protection. Unlike the basic forms of trademark protection such as logo, brand name or design protection, trade dress protection is the design and appearance of a product that can be recognized by consumers.

Even if a design does not have the company's name or logo, as long as it may confuse the public's brand awareness of the original manufacturer's products, it may cause infringement of trade dress. Yeezy Boost The 750's commercial appearance may include changes in some of the following elements, such as the configuration of the sports upper, including five rows of lace positions and vertical looping holes, a row of air holes at the toe, holes at the same position as the upper, curved lines sewn on both sides of the shoe, and vertical zippers at the heel.

In the absence of federal trade appearance registration records, if the lawsuit initiated by Adidas is to be established, it must be proved that Yeezy Boost 750 is a symbol source, namely Yeezy The appearance of Boost itself will make consumers think that this is an Adidas shoe. In addition, those so-called imitations may cause confusion among consumers, which means that consumers will think that these imitations are real Adidas sports shoes.

Some analysts said that it remains to be seen how Adidas will combine this recognition with the terms Yeezy Boost wants to claim, because it has not yet formally launched a lawsuit against this counterfeit brand.

From Adidas and Kanye After West cooperation, adidas brand is defined as being able to enter fashion show In addition, it is now acting more like a fast fashion retailer. Thanks to the sales revenue of its sports shoes, Adidas Group's first quarter net profit surged 38%.