Singled Out by Jaguar
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Singled Out by Jaguar GB
We have been contacted by Jaguar's legal team and ordered to stop calling ourselves designXKR. The XKR part of our name is a registered trade mark and they claim that we are "passing ourselves off" as Jaguar and we are taking unfair advantage of their reputation. We have been ordered to rebrand and to make sure that we do not have any other jaguar trade marks on our site.
In fact we cannot say we supply Genuine Jaguar Parts, we can only say: we supply genuine parts for Jaguars. We have been given 6 months to stop trading under the name designXKR and to relinquish our domain to them.
So the hunt is on for a new name (Ideas welcome). Very tempted to use Hampshire Jaguar as they do not seem to be bothered by the 40 or so Indies that use the Jaguar name.
Any lawyers out there LOL
The fact that is is registered means they have the right to stop it being used, simply altering the name won't be accepted by Jaguar. I have just come out of a trademark battle with a much smaller firm than Jaguar, the mark wasn't even registered, they just had to prove they had been using it for years before I applied for it. We even did checks with the IPO to make sure it was available, but it was opposed at the last minute, cost me over 1k just to turn my trademarks etc over to the other firm and avoid being sued for passing off of their trademark, they have since registered it. The Jaguar name must be registered also, maybe as Jaguar cars, as far as I recall, they had to seek permission from the aircraft manufacturer to use it when they went from SS. There may be more of these notices to other firms if that is the case.
A quick google search show Jaguar do own the Jaguar trademark for cars and many other items and have successfully opposed it's use. There is no reason why they can't stop indies using there name, you might not be singled out, you might just be the first of many. If I had any of their trademarks in my business name, I would get advice from a trademark attorney, they can do all the checks on your new name, so it can be registered to you unhindered and save this hassle in the future.
There are about 60 companies using Jaguar in their name registered at companies house.
Are Jaguar going to threaten all of them? Wouldn't do their PR much good.
As the animal was in existence long before the car how can somebody trademark something from nature?
Somebody could trademark sun, moon, earth, road, etc and then sue anybody who used those words.
Some years ago when Ford owned Jaguar their attorney forced a little girl to give up her website about the animal because Jaguar was used in the domain name.
Are Jaguar going to threaten all of them? Wouldn't do their PR much good.
As the animal was in existence long before the car how can somebody trademark something from nature?
Somebody could trademark sun, moon, earth, road, etc and then sue anybody who used those words.
Some years ago when Ford owned Jaguar their attorney forced a little girl to give up her website about the animal because Jaguar was used in the domain name.
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