Nissan North America believes there is “absolutely no basis” for Florida-based aftermarket sunroof supplier Donmar Enterprises’ lawsuit over names the Japanese carmaker uses for sunroof features available on some of its models in the United States.
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Donmar on Monday issued a statement saying that it had held a trademark for the term ‘Skyroof’ since 1989 and objected when Nissan launched the 2000 Xterra SUV with a ‘flip-up skyroof’.
The statement said Donmar resolved the conflict in February 2001 by granting Nissan and Nissan Jidosha Kobushiki Kaisha a licence to use the Skyroof trademark on model year 2000 and 2001 Xterra vehicles. That licence expired in August 2001 and, Donmar claims, under the terms of the licence agreement, Nissan agreed that the term ‘Skyroof’ was not to be used on vehicles after the 2001 model year, and that a different term would be used on subsequent model year vehicles.
Donmar said Nissan dealers and other third parties in the US had advertised subsequent model year Xterras with the ‘flip up skyroof’ feature and also claimed that Nissan adopted the term ‘Skyroof’ to describe the sunroof feature on its X-Trail SUV and also used the term ‘Skyview Roof’ to describe a new sunroof feature for the 2004 Maxima and Quest vehicles.
Believing that Nissan’s use of the ‘Skyroof’ and ‘Skyview Roof’ terms violated the terms of the licence agreement and its trademark rights, Donmar subsequently sued Nissan.
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By GlobalDataHowever, Nissan North America senior manager of corporate communications, Kyle Bazemore, told just-auto that Nissan applied for the ‘SkyView’ trademark, and it was approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
“A company objected to this trademark and also filed a lawsuit, alleging Nissan’s use of ‘SkyView’ would create consumer confusion with their ‘Skyroof’ trademark. We cannot comment specifically on this pending litigation, but, we believe there is absolutely no basis for the company’s trademark objection nor its lawsuit,” Bazemore said.
“In addition, we believe that we will not be required to cease using the SkyView trademark,” he added.
