Posts Tagged: "Jeep"

While there are certainly limits on how—and how much—aftermarket sellers can use OEM trademarks to communicate key information about aftermarket parts, the legal boundaries for aftermarket sellers are not always clear. And, in the automotive industry, the question of legal boundaries is perhaps most intriguing when the trademark concerned is one of product configuration. Indeed, several U.S. auto companies own incontestable trademarks registrations for various source-identifying parts of their automobiles such as grilles, headlights, and fenders. In light of such perpetual trademark rights in these part configurations, how can aftermarket sellers offer visually identical replacement grilles, headlights or fenders without significant risk of a trademark infringement claim from the auto companies?

The government was looking for a multi-purpose four-wheel-drive vehicle. Only American Bantam Car Company responded to the request within the given time, which was just 49 days to produce a working prototype. The government was impressed with Bantam’s design and shared the blueprints with several other companies, which not surprisingly soon followed with their own very similar designs. Adding insult to injury, the government applied for a patent in the name of Colonel Byron Jones as the inventor despite the fact that he did not work on the design of the vehicle.