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Today, the term Audi suing NIO for infringement has gone viral on Weibo. According to foreign media reports yesterday, Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has filed a lawsuit in a Munich court, accusing Lulai of infringing Audi's trademark. Audi said its two models, named ES6 and ES8, infringed the trademark rights of Audi's S6 and S8 models. With regard to the lawsuit, a spokesman for Audi confirmed the lawsuit, saying: Audi's headquarters believes that the name of the model chosen by the company in the European market infringes the Audi brand's trademark rights in Europe, and the matter has yet to be clarified at the legal level. NIO commented on the matter that it did not comment on the ongoing lawsuit.

For this matter, many netizens also posted comments: this can also be related. It is worth noting that today, Li Pengcheng, vice president of Xiaopeng Automobile, also said on Weibo: it has not been one or two days since these NIO cars were called by this name. Although Audi and NIO compete, they are also superficially harmonious, and each has its own way. At this time, Audi suddenly sued Wei Lai on his doorstep, more or less unable to beat the mix, but more or less unknown. You see, also called X7, when did BMW sue Changan Auchan, Hanteng, Mahayana and Lu Feng?

For Xiaopeng Automobile Vice President's remarks, many netizens commented on his Weibo: Audi this operation is really incomprehensible, hit the name is not very normal.

According to relevant data: the Lailai ES8 model was launched in 2017, and the new car is positioned as a seven-seat SUV, which is produced by Jianghuai OEM. The price of the benchmark version of ES8 is 448000 yuan before subsidy. In 2018, the new car positioning pure electric drive medium-sized SUV, the price is 35.80-498000 yuan, the maximum battery life 510km. From the launch to the present, the ES8 and ES6 models have been sold for more than four years, at this time Audi accused of infringing trademarks, it is really a bit puzzling.

In fact, litigation incidents about trademark infringement among car companies also occur frequently. As early as September 2019, Citroen filed a lawsuit in France against Polar Star for "trademark infringement". Citroen believes that Polar Star's Logo is very similar to Citroen's "herringbone brand" design and the logo of Citroen's former brand DS, which may confuse car buyers. Citroen said: the brand Logo is two "V-shapes" stacked upside down, while the Polar Star is formed by the opposite of two "V-shapes". The Polar Star logo infringes on its "double V-shaped" logo. Finally, after more than a year of judgment, the court ruled that the Polar Star brand could not use the logo in France for at least six months and was fined 150000 euros (about 1.17 million yuan). As a result of the incident, the Star brand closed its website in France before it was sold in France.

In addition to the similar car logo is sued for infringement, there are also car companies and car companies are accused of infringement. In addition, earlier, Lecker was questioned by Ford Motor for applying for a trademark because it sounded like Ford's luxury car brand Lincoln. Lecker sounds like Ford's luxury brand Lincoln in English, Ford said. On the other hand, Lynk & CO is a bit like Lincoln buckle in Chinese literal translation. "the Lincoln brand has a history of 100 years and hopes to protect its reputation," a Lincoln spokesman said at the time. The Lecker brand infringes on Lincoln's trademark rights, and we are taking legal measures to prevent them from using infringing trademarks, and their names are too easy to confuse consumers. "

According to the relevant data, trademark right is the right enjoyed by civil subjects to use specific marks exclusively in specific goods or services for the purpose of distinguishing sources. The way of obtaining trademark right includes two ways: obtaining trademark right through use and obtaining trademark right through registration. Obtaining the trademark right through registration is also known as the exclusive right to use the registered trademark. In China, trademark registration is the basic way to obtain trademark rights. Article 3 of the Trademark Law stipulates: "the trademark approved and registered by the Trademark Office is a registered trademark, and the trademark registrant enjoys the exclusive right to use the trademark and is protected by law."

In response to a series of trademark litigation of car companies, some industry insiders said that these trademark lawsuits are not uncommon in recent years. After all, car companies should not only pay attention to competitors' trademarks, but also consider other industries, and even pronunciation has the probability of infringement, which is really too difficult. However, some industry insiders pointed out that Audi is filing a trademark lawsuit to NIO or preparing for the names of electric vehicles in the future, and many German media have said that the degree of confusion between SUV models and cars is very low, and Audi's lawsuit is likely to enhance the popularity of NIO in Europe.

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