Trademark case: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. v. FCA US, LLC, USA

A district court was too hasty in rejecting the safe distance rule.

A federal district court in Detroit must reconsider its decision to allow the Indian maker of an off-road vehicle to release a redesigned product that ostensibly did not infringe the trade dress of the venerable Jeep brand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held in a nonprecedential opinion. The court, in reversing and remanding to the district court, found that the court should have considered whether the redesigned vehicle, even if not itself infringing, should still be enjoined under the so-called “safe-distance rule.” (Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. v. FCA US, LLC, September 19, 2022, White, H.).

Case date: 19 September 2022

Case number: No. 21-2605

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.