{"id":40815,"date":"2023-01-20T03:03:41","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T08:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=40815"},"modified":"2023-01-20T03:03:41","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T08:03:41","slug":"audi-wins-case-against-nio-es6-es8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=40815","title":{"rendered":"Audi Wins Court Case Against Nio Over ES6 And ES8 Naming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audi won a copyright case against Chinese EV maker Nio, with a sales ban imposed on the Asian-based company\u2019s ES6 and ES8 models in Germany. The Munich Regional Court ruled on Thursday that the name of Nio\u2019s EVs are too similar and could be confused with Audi\u2019s own S6 and S8 performance sedans.<\/p>\n

The decision, revealed by the German publication Automobilwoche<\/em><\/a>, says that the ES6<\/a> and ES8<\/a> names infringe on Audi<\/a>\u2019s trademark rights because they could be wrongly interpreted as being electric variants of the German brand\u2019s models.<\/p>\n

The judge agreed that Nio<\/a>\u2019s model names are factually different from Audi\u2019s, but even so, the additional letter E isn\u2019t enough to sufficiently differentiate them, making them \u201cmentally connected, at least in terms of sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere is a risk that consumers will assume that the \u2018ES 6\u2019 is the \u2018S 6\u2019 in the electric version, that the two vehicles are from the same manufacturer,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThere is therefore a transfer danger of confusion through association that goes beyond pure association.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Audi began its court action back in the middle of 2022<\/a> when it argued that it\u2019s not about styling similarities – Nio\u2019s models being SUVs and Audi\u2019s model being sedans \u2013 but about the similarities in naming. Now, over a year later, the German brand won in court, but the decision is not final, and Nio can file for an appeal.<\/p>\n

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\"Nine <\/source><\/source><\/picture> <\/a> <\/p>\n

12<\/span> Photos<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

As a result, Nio is now prohibited from advertising the ES6 and ES8 models in Germany, with the Chinese automaker facing fines of up to 250,000 Euros ($270,000 at current exchange rates) or up to six months in prison for its managing director in Germany if it fails to comply with the court\u2019s ruling. Nio can however sell the ES7 in Germany, which was renamed as the EL7 in the region in October of last year.<\/p>\n

Audi said in a statement that it\u2019s \u201ccareful to protect [its intellectual property] comprehensively\u201d and that the \u201cjudgment confirms that the disputed model designations infringe Audi trademark rights. Many of our models have an iconic character\u2014for us and for our customers. This also and especially applies to our sporty S models.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Audi won a copyright case against Chinese EV maker Nio, with a sales ban imposed on the Asian-based company\u2019s ES6 and ES8 models in Germany. The Munich Regional Court ruled on Thursday that the name of Nio\u2019s EVs are too similar and could be confused with Audi\u2019s own S6 and S8 performance sedans. The decision, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}