Adidas has filed a lawsuit against White Fox Boutique, the Australian online fashion retailer, over stripe patterns on its products that the sportswear company contends are close enough to its registered three-stripe trademark to create confusion among shoppers — a case that some legal commentators say could put the validity of that trademark registration under scrutiny.

The trademark infringement action, lodged in the Federal Court of Australia, pits the Germany-headquartered brand against a Sydney-based business that draws a largely teenage customer base. Court filings show that Adidas has brought a claim against White Fox, alleging that four parallel, equal-width stripes set in a contrasting colour appear across a range of the rival brand's garments and promotional material in a manner that copies its protected trademark.

In its legal action, Adidas contends that the design at the centre of the dispute bears a misleading resemblance to its three-stripe trademark — a mark the company has maintained in Australia for over 65 years and across global markets for more than 75 years. The matter is headed to court hearings scheduled for next year, with White Fox contesting the claims against it.

Court documents show that, from March of this year onward, White Fox Boutique stocked and marketed clothing bearing four parallel stripes, with that promotional activity extending to bus-side advertisements, bus stop displays, and posts across social media platforms. When Adidas contacted White Fox in March with a request to pull the garments from shelves and discontinue use of the four-stripe design, the brand chose not to act on either point.

Adidas further contended that White Fox had incorporated authentic Adidas footwear — matching its clothing lines in colour — within certain promotional materials, a practice that, in the company's view, drew on the goodwill attached to the Adidas name and risked creating a perceived link between the two brands in the minds of consumers. The claim put forward holds that White Fox's conduct poses a threat to the filing party's standing and good name.

During proceedings, barrister Ed Heerey KC put forward White Fox's position that the four stripes appearing across its clothing lines served a purely decorative function and carried no trademark character. Among the products he drew attention to were four-stripe designs sourced from other labels — among them fast-fashion retailers Princess Polly, Glassons, and Shein.

Dr Abbas, a Queensland University of Technology lecturer in intellectual property law, placed the dispute in broader legal context, noting that the addition of a single stripe neither resolves a trademark claim outright nor automatically constitutes infringement. In setting out the legal framework, reference was made to a 2023 High Court ruling that assessed what impression a notional buyer — one whose recollection of the registered trade mark might be imperfect — would form of it, weighed against the impression conveyed by the sign in actual use.

Adidas's three-stripe motif, present from the company's founding in 1949, did not receive trademark protection until 1952 — the delay stemming from a prior claim held by Finnish sportswear maker Karhu, which had independently arrived at the same design and already secured its own registration. Dassler, the company's founder, negotiated an arrangement that exchanged two bottles of whiskey alongside the equivalent of 1,600 euros for the logo, a mark the brand has defended through legal action in the years since.

A court action brought against Pacific Brands in 2013 centred on a four-stripe design the company had applied to certain Dunlop and Grosby footwear lines, with the tribunal ultimately finding that three of the 12 contested designs bore a deceptive resemblance to the claimant's mark.

Legal disputes in other countries had resulted in Adidas losing trademark protection in certain markets, according to Sarah Hook, a law lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney. A trademark dispute over a four-stripe design brought Adidas and luxury fashion house Thom Browne before US courts, where the case was ultimately decided against the sportswear brand. A legal challenge brought by Thom Browne before the UK courts concluded with a High Court ruling that the trademark in question did not meet the threshold for validity.

Benjamin Hopper, who leads intellectual property law studies at the University of Melbourne, explained that trademark law requires a mark to be distinctive — that is, capable of setting one trader's goods or services apart from those of competitors in the same market — and that the case against Adidas rests on the argument that a three-stripe motif on clothing is too elementary and too widely available a form, comparable to a circle or a triangle, to justify one trader holding exclusive rights over it.

Dr Hook noted that in Australia, Adidas's trademark documentation indicated a single- or two-stripe design would fall outside the scope of infringement, while Dr Hopper put forward several possible explanations for White Fox's choice of four stripes — among them that the brand may have examined the boundaries of Adidas's registered monopoly over three stripes and opted for four as a way of staying just beyond that protected territory, potentially as a calculated move to attract publicity. One possibility, Dr Hopper noted, is that White Fox received legal advice indicating no violation of trademark law, passing off provisions, or the Australian Consumer Law would arise — or alternatively, that a defensible legal argument exists in their favour.

A hearing date in early 2027 has been set for the matter, with one strand of legal advice received by the defendants pointing to a possible challenge against the trademarks underpinning Adidas's lawsuit. Requests for a response were sent to both Adidas and White Fox Boutique.