It's kicking off again in the tiny German town of Herzogenaurach as adidas are reportedly suing their neighbours PUMA for using their famous 'Three Stripes' design on one of the Big Cat's 2017 football boots.
The boot in question is the PUMA evoPOWER Vigor 1 Camo. PUMA's first boot release of 2017 was wrapped in a camouflaged aesthetic as the brand teased their next-generation evoPOWER silo, but this has upset the legal bods across town at adidas who have accused PUMA of stepping too close to the Three Stripes design. A lawsuit has been filed for the accused infringement and it marks the latest chapter in a history of legal feuds between the two sports brands – Most recently, in April 2016 adidas tried to prevent PUMA from selling the NRGY shoe, claiming it was to similar to the BOOST series.
The apparent problem for adidas with the evoPOWER Vigor 1 Camo is that the boot uses a four-stripe look, and that, in their book is a little too close to comfort. The fact there is little PUMA branding on the boot has adidas worried that people may mistake it for an adidas product. Says a lot about what they think of the design...
“Puma’s use of four diagonal stripes on the side of the infringing cleat is a blatant attempt by Puma to trade on the goodwill and commercial magnetism adidas has built up in the three-stripe mark and to free-ride on adidas’s fame as a preeminent soccer brand,” adidas said in a statement. “Puma is not only a direct competitor, but shares a mutual history with Adidas,” the company wrote. “Puma is thus intimately familiar with adidas’s three-stripe mark and the enormous goodwill it represents."
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