The partnership between Ye and Adidas appears to be a “standard licensing deal” that was labeled as a collaboration, according to Kurtz.
“That means that Kanye is licensing to Adidas his trademarks and intellectual property, Yeezy and YZY, to put on shoes and apparel,” he said. “Adidas looks to be the one who’s doing the manufacturing and the designing, and that’s why they’re the ones on all the design patents.”
The Yeezy business earned more than $500 million in total royalty payments and marketing fees through 2020, the first four years of the Adidas deal. Ye’s pact with Adidas gave him a 15% royalty on wholesale Yeezy products, Forbes reported in 2019, but Ye told Bloomberg News in September that he wanted to renegotiate to a 20% lifetime agreement.
Filings with the PTO show that his company, Mascotte, has registered or applied to register 164 trademarks related to the Yeezy brand, including “Yeezy,” “Donda,” and “Yeezus.”
The trademarks cover products in a variety of industries from shoes, sportswear, food, and beverages, to cosmetics and products in the metaverse. The Gerben Law Firm, based in Washington, D.C., compiled the filings.
Unlike the other Yeezy footwear, Ye did obtain a design patent for the Yeezy Slide in 2020. In a since deleted Instagram post from June, Ye accused Adidas of creating knockoff Yeezy Slides.
Brand Value
The fallout may also serve as a warning for companies to complete their due diligence when jumping into co-branding deals, which have risen in popularity in the past few years, said trademark attorney Kazuyo Morita, who is a partner at Holland & Hart LLP.
Celebrity co-branding can often provide increased sales, consumer hype, and can distribute economic risk, she said. “And really, the more controversial the figure, the bigger the splash—and maybe the bigger the payoff—but there’s also this exact type of risk.”
In theory, Adidas could continue selling shoes that look identical to Yeezy shoes as long as they don’t use the trademarks owned by Ye. But Gerben said the controversy around the partnership has already diminished the value of Adidas’ designs.
“If Adidas is going to move forward with any use of a product that resembles something they did with Kanye, I don’t think that’s going to go over well,” he said.
“It is essentially just a complete loss for them.”
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