FORD takes FERRARI to court: "F150 is our trademark"

The American company seeks compensation and blocks the new F one name of the prancing horse. According to the American brand, Maranello would be appropriate of a pickup logo – very sold in the U.S. –  and utilized it for the new next Formula one car, ‘F150’, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unification. The response of the Italian team: “The code will never be the name of a commercial product, but from now on will use the full name”.

According to the online edition of the daily Detroit News, the U.S. giant accused Ferrari of two violations: the first is linked to the trademark, since the car has been named F150, as essentially identical to the Ford F-150 pickup, among other very sold in America, the first model dates back to 1975. The second is related to the creation of the website ferrarif150.com: web domain registered by Maranello and in the opinion of Ford’s lawyers is a form of “cybersquatting”, essentially the theft of a domain related to a registered trademark. Ford claims to have a “irreparable damage to the trademark F-150” and asks the court to prohibit the Ferrari to use the name of its pickup. The blockade, in essence, prevent Maranello to use the name F150, announced last month, also on the merchandising related to the Formula 1 team. Citing the law against cybersquatting, launched in 1999, Ford also requested compensation of $ 100,000.

Ferrari – writes the U.S. Reuters news agency – would have used F150 “in order to capitalize and profit from the good reputation that Ford has developed with the name F150. A trademark which Ferrari has been unjustly appropriate “. But whatìs the conjuction between the name of a commercial vehicle  and a  compettition car used only in formula one? Perhaps  are all ways good to make money? In fact, Ferrari press reported: “You can not confuse the car for next F1 championship with any commercial vehicle or think that there is a connection to another standard brand vehicle and is therefore very difficult to understand what is expressed by Ford.” Ferrari, then, gives notice that was sent a letter in response to Ford, noting that the initials F150 (used as an abbreviation of the full name Ferrari F150th Italy) is not and never will be the name of a commercial product – not there will certainly be a series production car –  as ever in the history of the Scuderia, the nomenclature is a project of a racing car and is linked to a chronological order, or technical reasons, in exceptional cases, to particular events ”
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Meanwhile Felipe Massa had the fastest time in first official testing day at Jerez, Spain.

UPDATE: Ferrari appears to have changed the name of its 2011 Formula One car to the F150th Italia.

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One Florida fan of the Italian automaker recently purchased a brand-new 2011 458 Italia. He wasn’t planning on turning his into an F150, but he did turn into an F-150… a Ford F-150