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He did it again: Kurt Hesse, CEO of the German toy company Autec, has once again opened a legal case against a car manufacturer. Back in 2010, he won a legal dispute against German (then) GM-subsidiary Opel. According to the judgement, Autec was allowed to use the Opel – logo on a R/C car without paying any license fees to the OEM. Three years before, the European Court of Justice ruled that a car manufacturer could only prohibit the use of the brand´s logo on model cars if these mislead the consumer by making him believe that the car company itself is producing the scale model, too. Now Ferrari was the target of Kurt Hesse. He registered the trademark “Testarossa” at the patent office, which of course led to a protest of Ferrari. Hesse´s response: A request to the patent office to delete the old trademark used by Ferrari, as they are no more using it actively since the Ferrari Testarossa went out of production in 1996. The District Court of Duesseldorf, Germany, has now decided for the benefit of Kurt Hesse: The deletion of the former trademark used by Ferrari is now legally binding. Kurt Hesse can start to use his trademark for toy products by one of his companies and he can of course even license it. However, it is pretty sure that Ferrari will not let this go. The Italian sportscar manufacturer is well-known for protecting his brand in any way. Let´s keep an eye on this story. Background: The Ferrari Testarossa was built from 1984 to 1996. Its name, Italian for “red head” was a sign for a red painted valve covers of the V12 engine. The most famous Ferrari Testarossa was the white one in the TV-series “Miami Vice”. |
