The Lawsuit

Levi Strauss & Co. has filed suit against Globe International — the Australian company behind Shawn Stussy's S/Double clothing brand — alleging trademark infringement over the use of tabs on the back pockets of jeans and other clothing. The action, reported on 9 June 2026, pits one of the world's most recognisable apparel brands against a streetwear label co-founded by the man who built Stüssy into a global phenomenon, and it turns on a deceptively simple question: who owns the right to put a small fabric tab on a back pocket?

The answer, in Levi's telling, has been settled since 1936.

The Trademark at Stake

According to The Guardian, Levi Strauss has claimed trademark rights in a red tab bearing the LEVI'S mark on clothing since 1936, the same year it says it began sewing those tabs onto the back pockets of its jeans. That near-century of consistent commercial use is the backbone of the company's legal position. Under trademark doctrine in most common-law jurisdictions, long and continuous use of a distinctive mark in trade is itself a source of rights — sometimes more durable than formal registration alone — and Levi's has both.

The tab itself is not incidental branding. It is, by any measure, one of the most instantly legible identifiers in fashion: a small rectangular piece of fabric, stitched at one end into the seam of a back pocket, with the word LEVI'S visible from a distance. Courts in multiple jurisdictions have previously upheld Levi's tab as a protectable trade dress, recognising that consumers associate the form with a single source regardless of whether they ever read the text on it.

Globe International and S/Double

Globe International is an ASX-listed company that operates across skateboarding, action sports, and fashion. Its portfolio has included the Globe footwear brand as well as apparel labels positioned squarely at youth and streetwear markets. S/Double is the label associated with Shawn Stussy — the Laguna Beach-born designer who founded Stüssy in the early 1980s and, in doing so, helped define the visual grammar of what we now call streetwear. Stussy departed the brand bearing his name in 1996 and has since operated under the S/Double marque.

The commercial logic of a tab on a pocket is not obscure in this context. Streetwear has long engaged in deliberate reference and homage to workwear heritage — the five-pocket jean, the arcuate stitch, the selvedge line — and a pocket tab sits squarely in that vocabulary. Whether the use was referential, coincidental, or simply a design decision made without adequate clearance is exactly the kind of factual question that trademark litigation exists to resolve.

What Levi's Must Prove

To succeed in a trademark infringement claim, Levi Strauss will need to establish, at minimum, that its tab mark is valid and protectable, that Globe's use of a similar tab on similar goods is likely to cause consumer confusion as to source, sponsorship, or affiliation, and that Globe's use is not shielded by any fair-use or nominative-use defence. The "likelihood of confusion" analysis — the operative test in Australian consumer law as much as in US trademark jurisprudence — weighs factors including the similarity of the marks, the proximity of the goods, the sophistication of the relevant consumer, and evidence of actual confusion.

The sophistication point could cut both ways. Streetwear consumers, particularly those aware of S/Double's provenance, are arguably more brand-literate than average — less likely to mistake an S/Double garment for a Levi's product. Conversely, a tab on a back pocket is precisely the kind of ambient signal that registers subconsciously rather than through deliberate reading, which is the whole point of trade dress protection.

Globe may also contest the scope of Levi's rights. Trademark protection does not extend infinitely; it covers the mark as used in connection with the goods and services for which it is registered or has been used. If Globe's tab differs sufficiently in appearance, placement, or labelling, it may argue the marks are not confusingly similar. These are live questions the pleadings will need to address.

A Pattern Worth Noting

We have seen this pattern before, when luxury and heritage brands moved aggressively in the early 2010s to police what they characterised as streetwear encroachment on protected trade dress. Christian Louboutin's prolonged battle over the red sole, Hermès' litigation against MetaBirkins, and a string of Levi's own actions over arcuate stitching all reflect the same structural tension: workwear and luxury codes have been absorbed so thoroughly into contemporary fashion that the line between homage, aesthetic vocabulary, and infringement has become genuinely contested terrain. The courts have not resolved that tension uniformly, which is why each new case attracts attention beyond its immediate parties.

The Levi's tab cases are particularly instructive because the company has, over decades, been willing to litigate to defend the mark rather than rely on reputational deterrence alone. That consistency of enforcement matters legally: a rights holder who fails to police its mark risks a finding of abandonment or acquiescence, so the decision to sue is as much a legal maintenance act as a commercial one.

Jurisdictional and Strategic Dimensions

Globe International is an Australian-listed entity, which means this action will likely engage Australian consumer law — specifically the Australian Consumer Law's prohibitions on misleading or deceptive conduct — alongside any registered trademark rights Levi's holds in Australia. Australian trademark law, governed by the Trade Marks Act 1995, largely mirrors the likelihood-of-confusion framework familiar from US and EU practice, but the remedies available and the procedural path differ.

For Levi's, the strategic calculus is familiar: a successful outcome against a visible, design-literate defendant sends a clearer signal to the broader market than a win against an unknown copyist. Globe and S/Double operate in a space where other brands are watching. A settlement that includes a consent injunction, product recall, or brand modification would be read as a precedent across the streetwear and denim sectors.

For Globe, the reputational stakes are distinct from the legal ones. Shawn Stussy's cultural capital is not trivial; the brand has an audience that will form views about the merits of the claim independently of any court outcome. That audience dynamic makes this litigation unusual — it is being watched by people who care about the outcome for reasons that have nothing to do with consumer confusion.

What Comes Next

The immediate procedural steps will involve Globe filing its defence and, potentially, a cross-claim or invalidity challenge against the relevant Levi's trademark registrations. Discovery will likely centre on the design history of S/Double's pocket treatment, any internal communications about the tab feature, and market research or consumer evidence bearing on confusion. Both sides will be aware that the litigation economics of a full trial in trademark matters favour settlement, and most disputes of this type resolve before a court delivers a judgment on the merits.

The broader question — whether heritage marks can continue to assert exclusivity over functional or semi-functional design elements that have become part of a shared aesthetic language — will not be definitively answered here. But each case adds a data point to that evolving body of law, and this one, given the parties involved and the profile of the mark, will be cited.