Payless to pay adidas $305 million

ouchrislitt

ouchrislitt

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FirstCuts: adidas gets $305M in lawsuit
FirstCuts: adidas lands $305M in Lawsuit
Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Posted By Chris Littmann 3:30 PM
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File this under "Things parent companies probably can't afford." A federal jury in Portland has ordered that Payless Shoesource Inc. must pay $304.6 million to adidas for "willfully infringing" the three-stripe trademark logo.
Payless? More like Paylots and go out of business probably! (Bah-zing!) [Ed. Note: Seriously, folks, he'll be here all night. Tip your waitress.] I'm really torn on this. On the one hand, there are so many knockoffs of so many types of shoes. I've said all along that many of the Starbury shoes, which are economically priced from $8.99 to $14.99, are major knockoffs of New Balance 574s, Dunks, Air Force 1s and many more if you want to really scrutinize them.

But the issue seems to be the use of the three-stripe logo itself, not an eerily similar shoe shape. And I don't know, I guess adidas owns that three-stripe logo, but does an extra line (or a line taken away, as was the case with two- and four-stripe logos) equal a fine of nearly $305M? Evidently it does.

Source: The Oregonian
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OUCH. Moral of the story: very similar shape, you're ok. very similar logo, tread carefully. I wonder if k-swiss should be worried.
 
That sucks but with the 4 stripes, it looks more like K-Swiss than Adidas but I guess the shape of the shoe gives it that Adidas look. I hope they don't goout of business though.
 
daaanggg that sucks for payless. hopefully this is a sign of things to come combating the fakes industry though... maybe theyll wisen up and make it not justlogos but shoe models...

well shoot in that case fake jordans use an "eerily similar logo" too
 
K-Swiss definitely needs to strike while the iron's hot. I mean, they do have the 4 stripes and so does the Payless shoe.
 
this is ******ed. I remember knock off "four stripe" shoes going all the way back to 1980. Wiebolts used to sell them, think Traxx was the brand.they were basicallly pro models with 4 stripes.

and 300 mil is ridiculous.
 
Remember, companies like Nike and adidas must protect their intellectual rights as they do not have ownership of tangible items to protect.
It wasn't so much the amount of stripes as it was the fact that the Payless shelltoe was nearly an adidas Superstar II.
The lawsuits' strength was because footwear developers for Payless actually bought adidas Superstar II's and sent them to plants in China and madetheir own version nearly identical.... regardless of how many stripes..
The thing that I don't get is, there are lots of Louis Vuitton and Gucci wannabes, not knock offs from on Canal St. but brands like Dooney & Burke whomake purses that resemble the aforementioned brands bags and accessories closer than Payless does adidas, but I have yet to see litigation.
 
the laws are hazey for sure, and bape is a good example of that. It bugs me a little that it's the low price knockoffs that get sued and not the bapes.

Also, I think four stripes should be enough to differentiate. everybody knows if you have 4 stripes you're wearing cheap knock offs hoping to foolsomebody. it's not like the superstar 2 is some cutting edge technology. Payless had shox for a while, I wonder if nike went after them...and if not, why.

though adidas is like 20x bigger, In the end payless is a big player, they can take care of themselves. but 300 million is half the value of the entirecompany.
 
I hope payless doesn't go out of business as it was a place for me when I was a kid to get "fresh" kicks since my family at the time wasn'texactly " ballin' " so I appreciate the store for selling cheap and somewhat decent looking shoes.
 
Originally Posted by Super Producer J

K-Swiss definitely needs to strike while the iron's hot. I mean, they do have the 4 stripes and so does the Payless shoe.
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I agree.
 
Originally Posted by jacobmontana

I hope this really discourages companys from making look-alikes in the future.
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see, I don't understand this at all. Not to come at you personally but what's wrong with some poor kid who can't afford 3 stripes getting somecheap lookalikes 4 stripes at payless? it's not like he's fooling anyone.
I'm kind of torn, because I understand how essential intellectualproperty laws are...but it feels like a stretch to call stripes on the side of a shoe intellectual property. basically it's just status or hype andI'm all for cheap knockoffs of status/hype b/c is is b.s. at the core anyway.
 
I always thought those looked corny, and how they could rip it off so closely.
But to drive the company out of business.....thats stupid.
$305 million is just not right.
 
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