I hear the rumors every year at the Volksworld show when we see the people from VW walking round taking photos. Sad days
I'm probably wrong here (usually am ) , but I thought the term Beetle was a nick name given to the car for its shape? and VW marketed it as VW Type 1 . hence no badge saying Beetle on car. Like I said I'm probably wrong :-[ Bit of a bugger if your company is Type1.com
The reason stated in the letter is 'passing off', which means that you are implying an association with VW by using their trademark 'Beetle', which according to the letter they have registered. The only way to find out if this is 'legal' is to challenge it in court, and it seems that 'justbeetles' declined to do that. It also seems that the only reason that this has ocurred is that 'justbeetles' tried to register their name as a trademark in direct conflict with VW's own trademark, which could be seen as a bit rash. It's not surprising that VW reacted in this way.
