April 2019. Adidas has won a resounding victory in Japan. In December, the Opposition Division of the Japan Patent Office ruled that a Chinese company couldn’t be given trademark protection for the logo LSXI.

Photo www.marks-iplaw.jp

Combination

The Chinese applicant clearly thought it would be a good wheeze to choose a logo for its LSXI clothing company partly consisting of one of the world-famous adidas trademarks: the so called trefoil logo.

Shameless

But the Japanese Patent Office’s Opposition Division was understandably less enthusiastic, and consigned the application to the rubbish bin. That’s what happens when you shamelessly try to piggyback on a well-known trademark.

The well-known adidas trefoil logo