Volkswagen loses EU court fight to protect GTI brand against Suzuki

Volkswagen on Wednesday lost a European Union court battle against Suzuki over the use by the Japenese carmaker of the GTI brand for a high-performance version of its SWIFT model.

The EU trademark office had in 2003 accepted Suzuki‘s application to register the "SWIFT GTi" brand despite Volkswagen‘s opposition, prompting the German carmaker to appeal the decision before the European Court of Justice.

The Luxembourg-based body found that there was no risk of confusion between Volkswagen‘s and Suzuki‘s GTI models, and rejected the appeal
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mini22 - 3/21/2012 2:39:26 PM

+1 Boost

I think it's great that Goliath was not able to slew David in this fight. So many car compnies use GT, SE, SEL, S etc. today. If the law upheld then only companies like Mercdes , BMW etc who originally came out with them would be able to market these names.I think that VW is too protective of it's precious GTI. They do it to the point that they refuse to sell the Scirocco in the US for fear it would hurt sales of it's GTI. Enough already!