Puma fails to stop Chinese rival’s stripe logo in EU court

(CN) — For Puma, stripes have long functioned as a calling card. On Wednesday, Europe’s General Court said that identity has limits, rejecting the sportswear giant’s attempt to stop a Chinese apparel company from registering a pared-down stripe design of its own.

In its ruling, the General Court of the European Union sided with the EU’s trademark office and cleared the way for Ningbo Gongfang Commercial Management Co. Ltd. to register a graphic logo built around a curved stripe and a sharp-edged triangle set against a black rectangle.

The fact that both companies sell similar clothing and footwear did not sway the judges. Overlapping products, the court stressed, do not by themselves establish a risk of consumer confusion. Under EU trademark law, disputes turn on the visual impression a mark makes on consumers, not simply on what products it appears on.

That focus proved decisive. Rather than speculating about how the logos might show up on shoes or in advertising, the court confined its analysis to the signs as they were filed. EU trademark law, the judges reiterated, does not account for hypothetical rotations, cropping or stylization in real-world use.

Viewed on that basis, the differences stood out. The contested logo’s solid black background, angular triangular element and distinct stripe geometry set it apart from Puma’s cleaner, flowing stripe designs. Taken together, those features gave the sign its own visual identity, one the court said an average consumer would not mistake for Puma’s, even on identical goods.

The case grew out of Puma’s challenge to a 2022 trademark application by the Chinese company, covering everyday apparel from jackets and hoodies to shoes and socks. Puma argued the design encroached on its established stripe branding, pointing to three earlier EU figurative trademarks built around white curved stripes angled upward, all registered for clothing and footwear.

Trademark authorities were not persuaded. The European Union Intellectual Property Office rejected Puma’s opposition in 2023, a decision later upheld by its Board of Appeal and now the General Court.

Eleonora Rosati, a professor of intellectual property law at Stockholm University, said the ruling followed well-worn ground in EU trademark law.

She pointed to a 2021 Chanel case as a close parallel, in which the fashion house tried to block Huawei from registering a logo of interlocking curved shapes. The General Court rejected the claim, underscoring that trademark protection is tied to the sign as registered and cannot be expanded to capture every imaginable visual variation. As the court wrote in that ruling, trademark protection “does not extend to any possible orientation of one’s mark.”

That same reasoning carried through here. Because the signs consisted only of abstract shapes, the judges narrowed their comparison to what consumers could actually perceive. With no words or letters involved, there was no sound element to assess; the judges also rejected the idea the designs shared any underlying concept.

As the court explained, “the signs do not even represent a specific geometric figure that might convey a particular meaning.”

With visual similarity ruled out and no phonetic or conceptual overlap to bridge the gap, a key requirement for finding confusion under EU trademark law was missing. Even Puma’s brand recognition and the fact that the goods were identical could not change the result.

Ilanah Fhima, a professor of intellectual property law at University College London, said the ruling draws a clear line around what trademark law is meant to protect.

Both logos may feature curved lines, she said, but that alone is not enough to justify locking up basic design ideas. What matters is the mark as it is actually filed, not imagined tweaks or supposed intent. Broader concerns about look-alike branding, she added, are better dealt with, if at all, outside trademark opposition proceedings.

That focus on limits reflects a wider tension in modern trademark law. Luke McDonagh, an associate professor of law at the London School of Economics, said the case raises a familiar question about how far protection should go when brands rely on stripped-back, design-led elements.

If companies are allowed to claim sweeping rights over stripes or simple geometric shapes, he warned, competition in fashion and sportswear could quickly suffer. Trademark law, he said, is meant to protect a specific logo or sign, not to hand one brand control over an entire design idea.

The same thinking also runs through how EU courts handle stripe and pattern disputes more generally, according to Alain Strowel, a professor of intellectual property, media and digital law at UCLouvain and a Brussels-based attorney at Pierstone. In joint comments with fellow Pierstone lawyer Lauranne de Montjoye, he said such cases are assessed almost entirely on visual grounds.

Because abstract patterns have no sound and little clear meaning, Strowel explained, courts tend to focus on overall visual impression. And since these elements are often weakly distinctive to begin with, even relatively small visual differences can be enough to sink an opposition.

The General Court’s ruling, he added, neatly reinforces a settled principle in EU trademark law: Similarity in the goods cannot make up for a lack of similarity between the signs themselves.

Puma declined to comment on the ruling, and EUIPO likewise offered no comment.

The court ordered Puma to cover its own costs as well as EUIPO’s expenses, formally closing the case at the General Court. Any further challenge would now have to be brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union and would be limited to points of law. An appeal must be filed within two months and ten days of notification of the judgment.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.