Motus Group wins trademark dispute against Group Lotus

Motus Group, the heavy commercial vehicle specialist dealer, has won a trademark dispute against Group Lotus.

Legal experts MILS assisted Motus Group after Group Lotus filed a complaint due to the one letter difference between the two company names.

Lotus objected to Motus Group’s own trademarks and demanded that the company name be changed to differentiate between the two corporate bodies.

The dispute went all the way to the Intellectual Property Tribunal where the case was heard on August 30, 2023.

Lotus chose to appeal after losing the initial case and continued to argue that the marks were so similar that members of the public would still confuse the goods and services provided by Motus with those provided by Lotus.

After a further hearing MILS was again successful in defending Motus' position and protecting both its trademarks and corporate identity.

Motus won on all counts, so much so that MILS has restricted Group Lotus’ existing trademarks (some of which have been in place since 1957) from protections against all land vehicles to motor cars only.

A spokesperson for MILS said: “The matter was a significant success for our trademark application advice and litigation service, and testament to the great work conducted particularly by Paul Carroll (solicitor), our head of legal Christopher Baylis (barrister) and by Daniel Selmi (barrister).”

Motus Group divested of its light commercial vehicle business to sister business Pentagon Group earlier this year to focus on its core HGV business.