The stripe war continued to rage last week with the latest battle cropping up between adidas and Target Corp. after adidas filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit accusing Target of copying its three-stripe design on some of the company’s products.

 

The claim was filed on September 30, 2008, and the next day, October 1, the counsel for adidas requested that the complaint be sealed by the court. This action will keep any information about monetary settlements out of public reach.


On Oct. 2, attorney Stephen M. Feldman representing adidas filed a document stating, “Adidas has not yet effected service of process upon Target. As such, Target has not yet appeared in this action and, to the best of adidas’s knowledge, is not yet represented by counsel. Counsel for adidas has therefore not been able to confer with Target regarding the accompanying motion to seal the complaint. However, given the nature of the motion, it is the understanding and belief of adidas’s counsel that Target would not oppose the motion.”


This is the fourth trademark-infringement lawsuit adidas has filed this year.


adidas and Wal-Mart filed a joint request on August 29 to dismiss its three-year-old infringement case in federal court in Portland, OR, with Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore stating in an e-mail that the terms of the settlement would remain confidential.  A jury in the same court in May told Collective Brands Inc.’s Payless ShoeSource unit to pay $304.6 million to adidas for copying the trademark. Two days later, Sears Holdings Corp.’s Kmart unit settled another case over the same design.