K-Swiss and Künzli end trademark dispute - footwearbiz: Leading site f

News

K-Swiss and Künzli end trademark dispute

14/03/2012
Sports footwear brand K-Swiss has ended its legal battle with Swiss brand Künzli over who should have the right to put five stripes on their shoes, which both companies have been doing.

A court in Germany has recognised that Künzli began using the five stripes design more than 50 years ago and shared the idea with K-Swiss, which it helped set up in California in 1966. However, because it never registered the trademark, it has lost a seven-year legal battle against the brand it helped to launch and from now the five stripes will appear only on K-Swiss shoes. K-Swiss did register the trademark for the five stripes in the US in 1974.

Künzli has quickly launched a new design with five red blocks, one of them framing a white cross to form the Swiss national flag, instead.

Related stories:

New creative director for K-Swiss brand 01/06/2016
K-Swiss on ‘aggressive’ acquisition trail 04/06/2015

footwearbiz.com cannot be held responsible for content if the language setting is changed from English.

The translations provided by Google Translate are automated and therefore might not be accurate and may contain incorrect, offensive or misleading language. We offer this facility as a guide only.