Jaguar Land Rover lost a UK court bid to get the trademark rights for the shape of its iconic Defender SUV, freeing billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group to go ahead with the Grenadier off-road vehicle.
A London court on Monday dismissed an appeal by JLR, owned by India’s Tata Motors. The UK Intellectual Property Office had found the shapes that the automaker sought to get protected weren’t distinctive enough.
The judge upheld the findings by the IP Office that while differences in design may appear significant to some specialists, they “may be unimportant, or may not even register, with average consumers.”
