Current Position: Home > IP News > Audi accused Weilai of trademark infringement and won the first trial

A few days ago, according to Electrok, the US auto news website, Audi will take Weilai to court and win the naming right of its electric car. The German Munich District Court ruled that the naming of the Ulai ES6 and ES8 sounded too similar to Audi's existing S6 and S8 models

微信图片_20230213232304.pngWeilai said: "The German Munich District Court made a preliminary judgment on the case of Audi suing Weilai for infringement of trademark rights, which we regret very much. We will resolutely appeal and safeguard our legal rights and interests by legal means. At present, Weilai's business in Europe is in an orderly manner, EL7 and ET5 will be delivered in the near future, and the construction of charging and changing facilities is also accelerating."

Qin Lihong, the co-founder of Weilai, said that this is only the first trial, not the final result. The company will resolutely appeal and safeguard its legal rights and interests by legal means.

It was reported that in this judgment, the German judge believed that the letter E was usually used in the modification of some electric or electrified vehicles, which would be interpreted as the change of "engine form"; Consumers may think that ES6 is an electric S6, and the two cars are from the same car manufacturer.

According to the official website of Audi in Germany, all the pure electric vehicles sold by Audi in Germany at present are prefixed or suffixed with "e-tron".

The dispute over the trademark rights of Audi and Weilai originated in October 2021. Audi said that Weilai named its two models ES6 and ES8, which violated the trademark rights of Audi S6 and S8, and sued Weilai in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Germany, where its headquarters is located.

On June 16, 2022, the Audi brand filed a lawsuit against Weilai Automobile in the Munich court, accusing it of infringing the trademark rights of Audi.

Audi said that Weilai's decision to name its two models ES6 and ES8 violated the trademark rights of the two models S6 and S8 of Audi. Subsequently, Weilai was prohibited from promoting the ES6 and ES8 vehicles in Germany.

When Weilai officially entered the German market in October 2022, its SUV product Weilai ES7 was renamed EL7.

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At that time, Audi China responded that Audi headquarters believed that the model name selected by the company mentioned in the outside world in the European market infringed the trademark right of Audi brand in Europe. This matter still needs to be clarified at the legal level.

It is reported that in May 2021, Weilai released its Norwegian strategy, announced its official entry into the Norwegian market, and established a complete operation system consisting of cars, services, digitalization and lifestyle, which took its first step into the market outside China.

On October 8, 2022, after Norway, Weilai again announced that it would enter Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden at the same time to further expand its business in the European market.

"The company's products, whole-system services and innovative business models will be launched in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark," Weilai said.

It is reported that since the middle of October 2022, Weilai has been delivering three models of ET7, ET5 and EL7 (domestic counterpart: ES7) in Germany and other markets.

Zhang Hui, Vice President of Weilai Europe, said that, "We believe that this decision is wrong. From the perspective of consumers, everyone who buys a car will know the model they want to buy in advance through the Internet, brochures and magazine articles. When people want Audi S series cars, no one will randomly choose the SUV of Weilai, and vice versa. We do not believe that Weilai infringes the trademark rights of Audi, so we hope to clarify this issue in principle."

It is reported that this is not the first time that European old car companies have sniped at new car companies on the grounds of "trademark rights" and model naming.

In 1963, when Porsche was preparing to release the 901 model, it received a letter from the lawyer of Peugeot Auto. Peugeot believed that the naming method of the model with three digits and zero in the middle had been used by Peugeot for many years. The naming method of the Porsche 901 violated the French trademark protection law and infringed on the interests of Peugeot.

Therefore, the Porsche 901 was forced to change its name to the Porsche 911, which is now known to users, on the eve of its release.

Note: The pictures and texts come from the network. If you have any valuable suggestions, please contact us at any time to revise and update!


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