FML article: Ferrari wins lawsuit over non-profit Ferrari club

Sounds like the club terminated its relationship but kept using Ferrari's trademark. Not all that surprising.

 

"Italian Supreme Court"

like that means anything.... who had deeper pockets

 

total BS... no material benefits to club were mentioned... only placating those with influence...

there must have been some personal vendettas that needed to be settled which the article does not mention, only the many years to reach a result could indicate it was a BS suit...

the F car logo and name are in the public domain as long as there isn't any infringement
on the financial interest or brand of the manufacturer... otherwise a resale or expressing affinity for any manufacturer's product would be impossible without the identifying marks of the product ... a manufacturer has no standing in the subsequent commerce of their product...

 

Yes, BUT -- using a trademarked logo is more likely to be infringement.

"FerrariChat" can use the name of the car in its site name, but I suspect that if Rob added a prancing horse to the logo or used the elongated-F word mark it would be another ball game.

Car makers (and many consumer product companies) are very protective of their trademarks -- having a Ferrari logo on your sevice facility can imply that it is Ferrari authorized. Ditto a club publication with the official Ferrari logo. Even the name itself can be problematic. The California-based company that restored my Speedster had "Porsche" in its name, but removed it at Porsche's request.

 

Correct.

It's called "fair use." You can use the names and even the images of the cars in myriad consumer products without permission but once you put a logo on anything it is a different game. Stay away from using logos and generally you are within all applicable copyright laws. This is how artists and collector manufactures stay in business.

 

using "widget" with an image and logo is not any infringement, it's in the public domain for identity purposes, using the logo identifies it as genuine... it's like having a signature sample, it's when going beyond the boundaries of identity that things can get sticky...

failing that it would be impossible to correctly identify anything

 

While I am not familiar with the details of this case, it probably needs to be looked at in the context of Ferrari's changing commercial attitude over the past decade or so.

Some years back, all the recognised clubs around the world received a demand that they should work to certain criteria -adopt a club badge to a very specific design, use stationery of a specific design (purchased from Ferrari spa if I recall), desist from using their established logos or incorporating the elongated F in their publications and publicity, stop selling any clothing or regalia except for those sold by spa and so on.

This caused a lot of upset amongst the club community, especially those who had been in existence before today's lawyers were born and had had long and close relationships with importers and, in several instances, specific endorsement from Enzo himself. I think it is right to say that none of these clubs ran anything approaching a commercial operation.

The wise clubs negotiated where they could but accepted the inevitability of the Company eventually prevailing. Some probably did not.

No one argues against Ferrari having to prevent commercial exploitation of their logos, especially on trashy 3rd party products, but one feels that they were a bit heavy handed with a group of people who had flown the flag for many years. Some kind of licence, linked to a peppercorn charge and a set of agreed guidelines would have doubtless achieved the same outcome.

It may well be that this is all irrelevant in the case of the Milan club but the decisions of the lower Italian courts hint at some breaking down of relationships!

 

Not over yet.
States at the end of the article;
"It is now up to the Milan Court of Appeal to apply the above principles and finally decide the case."

 

Bullfighter has it 100% correct. I deal in this stuff all the time.

A friend of mine had a shop called "Dr. Volks". He worked on VW's of course. VW of America sued and he changed his name to Dr. Bolts.

 

So Ferrari wins yet another lawsuit in a Italian Court of Law, go figure.