DETROIT, July 24 (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N) and its Cruise Robo-Taxi subsidiary have filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. to stop (FN) on the use of the name “BlueCruise” to market its hands-free driving technology, announced the company on Saturday.
In a statement released shortly after midnight Detroit Time, GM said that Ford’s use of the BlueCruise name infringes GM’s Super Cruise brand as well as the Cruise brand.
“While GM had hoped to amicably resolve the trademark infringement matter with Ford, we had no choice but to vigorously defend our brands and protect the capital our products and technologies have acquired in the market over several years,” said GM in his statement.
In the lawsuit filed on Friday, GM said automakers had “lengthy discussions” over the matter but failed to resolve the dispute.
GM alleges trademark infringement and unfair competition in the lawsuit. The US automaker # 1 has sought an order from the court to prohibit Ford from using the BlueCruise name and unspecified damage.
Ford called the lawsuit filed in California federal court “baseless and frivolous”.
“Drivers have understood what cruise control is for decades, every automaker offers it, and ‘cruise’ is a common abbreviation for capability,” Ford said in a statement. “That’s why BlueCruise was chosen as the name for the next evolution of Ford’s Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control, the Blue Oval.”
Automakers are fighting against each other to use technology that allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel in traffic jams or on highways. The so-called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, such as those from Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O) semi-automatic autopilot technology, should not allow the driver to completely disconnect from driving for long periods of time.
Automakers have used the word cruise for decades to describe cruise control systems that allow the driver to set a speed that the car would normally maintain when driving on the freeway.
“Ford knew what it was doing,” GM said in the lawsuit. “Ford’s decision to use a trademark used by GM and Cruise will inevitably create confusion.”
GM announced in 2012 that it would use the Super Cruise name for its hands-free driver assistance technology and has been marketing the technology under that name since 2017.
The self-driving vehicle unit Cruise, which is majority-owned by GM, has been in operation since 2013.
Ford announced that it would use the name Blue cruise for his hands-free technology in April of this year. Continue reading
Reporting by Joe White; additional reporting by Ben Klayman, editing by Himani Sarkar and Clelia Oziel
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