Adidas Vs. Payless: The Three Stripe Showdown

How much are stripes worth these days? Apparently in Adidas’ case they are worth around $100 million a piece. What the hell am I talking about? Well as some of you may of heard Adidas sued Collective Payless shoe stores for selling a shoe that was basically a copy of their signature three strip shoe. The suit totals $305 million, $30.6 million in actual damages, $137 million in punitive damages, and finally another $137 million in profit to Adidas. For some this is pretty extreme, but I liken it to all the “Fapes” or fake Bapes saturating the market. When someone develops a trademark, especially one that is the basis of their company, like Adidas does and someone blatantly makes a copy of it with minor alterations then it is a slap in the face. Payless should of known that you cannot mass produce and sell such a clear copyright infringements without recourse. I hope this sets the standard for copyright infringement fake shoes in the future.

Picture taken from KansasCity Star website.

I think originality is one of the greatest aspect of a shoe. When Adidas came out with the three stripe trademark it was original. The fact that some people think its ok to tread on the originality of one of the Fresher Kicks of our time makes me pissed. But hey, who shops at Payless anyways?