Adidas has asked the US Supreme Court to revive its long-running trademark case against American designer Thom Browne. Its petition, filed on 28 September and docketed as No. 26-445, came after Justice Sonia Sotomayor twice extended the filing deadline over the summer.
The dispute is over stripes. Adidas says Thom Browne’s parallel bars on sportswear are too close to its three-stripe mark; Thom Browne uses four bars, along with a striped grosgrain ribbon, as its signature.
How the case got here
Adidas sued in 2021. In January 2023 a Manhattan jury found that Thom Browne’s designs did not infringe and awarded adidas nothing. Thom Browne’s lawyers had pointed to a 2007 arrangement between the companies over its striped branding.
Adidas then asked for a new trial, arguing that Thom Browne had withheld internal emails relevant to whether it knew its stripes could cause confusion. The emails had surfaced in a similar case in the UK. Thom Browne denied hiding documents. A federal judge in New York refused a new trial in 2024, and the Second Circuit has since upheld that refusal, according to case summaries.
What adidas is asking for
The petition asks the justices to take up the new-trial question. The Supreme Court hears only a small share of the cases it is asked to review, and it has not yet indicated whether it will consider this one.
After five years, the fight is no longer about stripes on a hoodie but about what happens when evidence turns up too late.
What to watch
- Whether Thom Browne files a response or waives it, and when the justices consider the petition.
- The parallel UK proceedings over adidas’s three-stripe registrations.
