In April, Ford made an announcement regarding its hands-free driving system being dubbed as ‘BLUECRUISE’. Ford also stated that it would become available starting with all 2021 model year F-150 trucks and Mustang Mach E crossovers. However, General Motors do not seem to be happy with Ford’s name choice. Thus, GM along with its autonomous-taxi subsidiary CRUISE recently filed a lawsuit in a federal court in California. Such a lawsuit was filed as an attempt to prevent Ford from using the name BLUECRUISE moniker.
Ford proved its point by submitting a list of other technologies using the word CRUISE which included some really big names like Hyundai’s Smart Cruise Control. Ford also pointed out that GM was having zero issues with other ‘CRUISE’ names but only with BLUECRUISE. Ford compared their situation to that when GM would be trying to assert trademark ownership on a term such as hybrid or turbo.
K S & Co Comment:
While automobile giants quarrel over rights quite often, it is also seen that these fights end up in the favour of the party that has implemented a good strategy towards safeguarding its Intellectual Property Rights. In this scenario, Ford could prove that they have been using the term CRUISE extensively on their goods and this caused the judge to rule in their favour.
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