The Ferrari 250 GTO holds the title of the “world’s most expensive car.” The 2-door Berlinetta made headlines – and broke previous records – back in 2018 when a rare 1962 model sold for $48.4 million at RM Sotheby’s annual collector car sale in Monterey, California, where the bidding for the prancing horse-adorned automobile started at an eye-popping $35 million. The design of the car is taking on new significance as of late. In a decision last month, the Cancellation Division of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (“EUIPO”) determined that the trademark registration that Ferrari has held for the shape of the famed car since 2008 is no longer entirely valid. Reports Fashion Law Blog
The budding trademark fight over the shape of the 250 GTO – a car that Ferrari produced just 39 of exclusively between 1962 and 1964, and for which the company’s founder Enzo Ferrari personally approved each individual buyer – pits Ferrari against Ares Design, the 8-year old auto company started by its former Senior Vice President Commercial and Brand (and former Group Lotus CEO) Dany Bahar.
The legal back-and-forth between the two Italian automakers got its start in late December 2018 when Ares Design initiated proceedings with the EUIPO. A high performance car customization company in the process of working on a multi-series modern interpretation of the 250 GTO, Ares sought to invalidate Ferrari’s trademark for the source-identifying shape of the 250 GTO. (In the EU, trademarks “consisting of, or extending to, three-dimensional shapes, including containers, packaging, the product itself, or their appearance” are defined and protected as shape marks).
According to Ares, Ferrari had no intention of actually using the shape – with its elongated bonnet, raised bumper, and curvilinear two-door silhouette – when it filed for an EU trademark registration to protect the shape of the car in 2007, some 43 years after it last made such a model. Instead, Ferrari filed the application “in bad faith, namely, as a defensive mark in order to block third parties from producing and selling similarly built sports cars.”
