Conflict in trademark rights between Ferrari and Ford

11-02-11

Even the luxury automobile manufacturer Ferrari has to bend with trademark rights, after the opinion of US automaker Ford. Ford insists on Ferrari’s renunciation of the label „F150“ for the 2011 Formula 1 racing car.

With the name „F150“ Ferrari wanted to pay tribute to this year’s 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. Without any legal brandname enquiries in advance the name for the new racing vehicle was announced in the end of January, 2011.

Soon after, the U.S. automaker Ford filed a complaint, asking the U.S. District Court in Detroit to bar Ferrari from using the name „F150“ and further to award Ford damages in the amount of 100,000 USD. The reason for the complaint is the striking resemblance to Ford’s U.S. top-selling pickup truck called „F-150“ which is being distributed for more than 35 years.

From Ford’s point of view, Ferrari infringes its trademark rights by using the name „F150“ and benefits from a successfully launched brandname which has been used for a couple of decades.

Since Ford has achieved numerous successes in the history of racing as well and is therefore a direct rival in auto racing, a pure prohibition of using the name would be insufficient, that’s the reason for the claim for damages.

Since Ferrari obviously hasn’t recognized the explosiveness of the situation before the announcement of the name and the risk is assessed to be rather high, it has issued a press release yesterday, stating that it will forthwith renounce the use of the name „F150“ in any form and also cancel the domain „ferrariF150“.com“. The new 2011 racing vehicle will now be called „Ferrari F150th Italia“.

This upcoming legal trademark conflict is again an evidence for the importance of first a well-considered selection of self-contained brandnames and second a sufficient legal protection of the names before the effective use on the public.

Most of all in the automobile branch, where severe brand competitions are often an order of business, the variety of new, applicable brandnames becomes even smaller.

innomark as a specialist for the creation of new, sustainable and concept-fitting brandnames has successfully consulted a large number of national and multinational enterprises also in this branch. Beyond other examples it is responsible for the Porsche sportscoupé called Cayman.

(Thomas Schiefer, managing director of innomark, comments at irregular intervals on several naming topics which are up to discussion.)