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Lucid Motors is vulnerable to dropping the trademark for the identify of its Gravity SUV, simply months earlier than the corporate is meant to begin manufacturing.
Google Ventures-backed EV charging firm Gravity Inc. filed a “petition for cancellation” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace’s Trademark Trial and Enchantment Board in December asking for Lucid’s Gravity trademark to be revoked. The startup claims within the petition that Lucid’s use of the Gravity identify might confuse customers, since Gravity Inc. makes use of it for EV charging and has used it prior to now to function a fleet of EV taxis.
The problem comes at a time when Lucid is struggling to drum up prospects, placing elevated stress on the Gravity SUV to succeed when it rolls off the road on the finish of this 12 months. The corporate misplaced $2.8 billion in 2023 and is barely projecting to make round 9,000 automobiles in 2024 after as soon as predicting it will make ten instances that.
Lucid has disputed the petition, however not too long ago warned traders in its annual submitting with the Securities and Alternate Fee that “[s]uch oppositions and challenges may be costly and should adversely have an effect on our means to take care of the goodwill gained in reference to a specific trademark.” A spokesperson for Lucid declined to remark past what’s within the filings with the TTAB.
“We really feel very, very assured about it,” Moshe Cohen, Gravity Inc.’s CEO, stated of the petition in an interview with TechCrunch.
Gravity Inc. has spent the previous couple of years engaged on designing and constructing superior fast-charging stations for electrical automobiles, and launched its first flagship location in New York Metropolis final week. It additionally started working a fleet of electrical taxis within the metropolis in late 2021 as a part of Taxi and Limousine Fee pilot program, utilizing a Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Mannequin Y SUV.
The startup obtained its trademark for the usage of the phrase Gravity in 2017, in relation to “transportation companies, specifically, employed automotive transport; passenger transport; taxi and limousine transport” and “pc software program and downloadable software program within the nature of a cellular software for coordinating transportation companies, specifically, software program for the automated scheduling and dispatch of motorized automobiles.”
The TLC pilot program resulted in 2023, although. A TLC spokesperson informed TechCrunch that one in every of Gravity’s taxis continues to be energetic in its system.
Lucid, in its reply to the petition filed final week, says that Gravity doesn’t at the moment function an EV fleet and argues that buyers wouldn’t be confused by the 2 completely different makes use of of the Gravity identify.
“[T]he providing on the market of electrically powered cars is completely distinct from [Gravity Inc.’s] alleged provision of hired-car transport, passenger transport, and taxi and limousine
transport companies, and associated transportation choices, to such a level that buyers aren’t prone to consider that [Gravity Inc.’s] and [Lucid’s] items and/or companies are related,” Lucid says in its response. “Furthermore, upon info and perception, [Gravity Inc.] ceased use of the GRAVITY mark for transportation and transportation-related companies earlier than the submitting of this petition.”
To that finish, Lucid additionally filed a counterclaim with the aim of attempting to drive Gravity Inc. to surrender its trademark as a result of it deserted the fleet enterprise. “[Lucid] believes that it’s being and can proceed to be broken by [Gravity Inc.’s] registration,” the corporate writes.
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