As I understand it, trademarks are regional, i.e. you can trademark a name
in the US, but it won't be applicable in Europe. This originally happened
with the Tiger - the European market cars were badged as Alpine 260 / 289's
to avoid conflict with a truck model name. Likewise the Ford Sierra was
renamed when it came over here to avoid confusion with the Oldsmobile
Cutlass Ciera. So Chrysler may have let the US trademark lapse (and that
means anyone can re-register it as far as I know), but I don't know how it
stands in the rest of the world.
I also don't think that you're allowed to trademark-squat (for lack of a
better term). As owner of a trademark you have to actively use the mark in
your advertising and promotional campaigns, and also indicate that the
trademark is registered. Trademarks become invalid if they're not being used
by the owner, but I don't know what the expiry time is.
It appeared to me that the trademarks notices I saw on the USPTO site were
just applications - maybe there's still time to put in a counterclaim, for
anyone interested in getting into a big legal wrangle.
Theo
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-tigers@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-tigers@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Stephen Waybright
Sent: July 30, 2004 7:39 AM
To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Sunbeam trademark ownership
Perhaps someone stumbled across the Tigers united site with the 2005 Tiger
concepts and sees a potential gold mine in one of them. ;)
http://www.tigersunited.com/articles/Tiger_2005/Tiger_2005-1.asp
Of course it would be crazy to launch a car brand-named Sunbeam in the US
these days. Far to many jokes relating to either bread or household
appliances. It seems an odd thing to trademark, but could be an attempt like
a URL squatter... grab rights to anything that anyone may try to use and
then try to extort a big settlement to assign the rights over to them.
I would think that the last owner of the brand would have some rights to
reclaim. Who ended up with the Sunbeam brand anyway? I thought Chrysler sold
it off.
Stephen Waybright
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