The European Union’s second highest court ruled on Wednesday that Adidas’s three-stripe branding was invalid as a trademark as it lacked a distinctive character.

The General Court of the European Union said it upheld a decision of the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in 2016 to annul a previous decision to accept the mark.

The German sports goods company registered the trademark in 2014 for clothing, footwear and headgear, saying it consisted of “three parallel equidistant stripes of equal width applied to the product in whichever direction.”

However, it was challenged by Belgian company Shoe Branding Europe, with which Adidas has been in a decade-long dispute.

source: Reuters