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SWEDISH DESIGN

DESIGN

Five top urban designs to spice up Sweden

Last time you got stuck waiting for a train did you even notice what chair you were sitting on to while the minutes, or hours, away? Probably not. Public design does not have to be so anonymous, argues design writer Angeline Eriksson.

Published: 7 February 2014 12:43 CET
Five top urban designs to spice up Sweden
A public swivel bench and a heart-shaped bike stand. Photos: Haggs, Lappset

Urban furniture design is the stuff that surrounds us every day. Much of it goes by unnoticed. It’s the furniture and the props we see in parks, train stations or schools, and consists of garbage cans, benches, or say,  mail boxes, for example.

It is also the stuff that 99 percent of us have absolutely no say over, unless the municipal or city district politicians you elected are particularly sensitive to your design preferences. Nag the members of your local environmental committee (miljönämnden) if you want to be kept updated about upgrade plans near you. 

Sweden is known for fantastic and innovative design and this year at the Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair the best of the best came out to showcase why Sweden and Scandinavia are still the ones to beat. 

IN PICTURES: Five of the best ways to spice up the spaces we share in public

On Saturday February 8th, the fair at Älvsjömässan in southern Stockholm will also open to the public, so grab your inspiration goggles and get awandering. The commuter trains heading south from Centralen will take you there. 

Enjoy. 

Angeline Eriksson

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COURT

Adidas loses EU court battle over ‘three stripe’ design

German sportswear giant Adidas on Wednesday lost a legal battle to trademark its "three stripe" motif in the EU, as a court ruled the design was not distinctive enough to deserve protection.

Published: 19 June 2019 13:15 CEST
Adidas loses EU court battle over 'three stripe' design
Archive photo shows an Adidas shoe. Photo: DPA

The three parallel stripes seen adorning everything from running shoes to sports bags and the sleeves of t-shirts are “an ordinary figurative mark”, the General Court of the European Union ruled.

The court, the EU's second highest tribunal, upheld a 2016 ruling by the bloc's intellectual property regulator cancelling the registration of the three-stripe design as a trademark following a challenge by a Belgian shoe 
company.

“The General Court of the EU confirms the invalidity of the Adidas EU trade mark which consists of three parallel stripes applied in any direction,” the court said in a statement.

Adidas had not proved the motif had acquired a “distinctive character” throughout the 28 countries of the bloc that would qualify for legal protection, the court said.

SEE ALSO: Shoe-Bahn: Berliners queue for sneaker with sewn-in annual transit ticket

“The mark is not a pattern mark composed of a series of regularly repetitive elements, but an ordinary figurative mark,” the court said.

The ruling is the latest round in a long legal tussle between Adidas and Belgian rival Shoe Branding Europe, which as far back as 2009 won trademark status for a two-stripe design, triggering court action from the German firm.

Adidas, which is based in the small Bavarian city of Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg, can appeal against Wednesday's decision to the European Court of Justice, the bloc's highest court. 

 

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