Back in July, Ford’s chief crosstown rival, General Motors, and its self-driving subsidiary, Cruise, filed a lawsuit against The Blue Oval which aims to block The Blue Oval from using the name BlueCruise for its forthcoming hands-free highway driving feature. The crux of the lawsuit is that Ford’s use of BlueCruise infringes upon GM’s own hands-free driving tech, dubbed Super Cruise, but FoMoCo argues that the word “cruise” is used widely across the entire automotive industry. Now, Ford is fighting back by asking the U.S. Patent Office to rescind all GM Cruise related trademarks, according to Reuters.
“To defend itself, Ford has no choice but to ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to rescind both of GM’s ‘Cruise’ and ‘Super Cruise’ trademark registrations that should have never been registered in the first place,” Ford said in a statement. “Any number of companies use the word ‘cruise’ in connection with driver-assist technology.”
Meanwhile, GM said that Super Cruise “has had a well-established commercial presence since 2017,” and noted that the company “remains committed to vigorously defending our brands and protecting the equity our products and technology have earned over several years in the market and that won’t change.”
Ford wants the U.S. Patent Office to rescind both the GM Cruise and Super Cruise trademarks on the basis that the world “cruise” is a generic term that simply describes any sort of technology that takes over various driving tasks from a person when engaged. Additionally, Ford North America Product Communications director Mike Levine cited the fact that a number of other automakers currently utilize the word “cruise” to describe their own, similar technologies.
As a reminder, here are other examples of “Cruise” that GM has no issue with:
• Predictive Cruise – Mack Trucks
• Autocruise – ZF
• Robocruise – RoboCars
• Smart Cruise Control – Hyundai
• Active Cruise Control – BMW— Mike Levine (@mrlevine) August 14, 2021
Ford is currently preparing to launch BlueCruise on the 2021 Ford F-150 and 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E later this year, which will then roll out to various other models in the coming months and years, though Lincoln’s version of this hands-free driving tech will be called ActiveGlide.
We’ll have more on this and all of Ford’s pending lawsuits soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford lawsuit news and 24/7 Ford news coverage.
No Comments yet