Formula One Trade Mark
Formula One's attempt to register the abbreviation "F1" as a trade mark has been rejected by the UK trade mark registry. Formula One Licensing BV, the commercial rights holder in Formula One, applied to register "F1" as a word mark but faced opposition from Racing Live SA, a French company which runs the website www.f1-live.com.
Evidence submitted from popular internet websites on behalf of Racing Live convinced the registry that the public perception of "F1" was that it was associated with, or descriptive of, the sport itself rather than the Formula One brand. Formula One had argued that its ability to exploit commercial rights relating to the sport exclusively, as well as the control which it exercises over the "F1" mark at grands prix meant that it had goodwill in the mark. However, this did not convince the registry that "F1" was distinctive of Formula One in particular or that it indicated trade origin (an essential criterion for successful trade mark registration). Instead, the registry felt that the arguments put forward by Formula One only served to highlight the monopoly that Formula One maintains over the sport.
Formula One is not the first sports rights holder to suffer defeat in similar circumstances. The Rugby Football Union (in relation to the English rose emblem), the Brazilian Football Confederation (in relation to the historic Brazilian national team emblem), and FIFA (in relation to "WM", the abbreviation of the German term for "World Championships") failed to register the marks on the basis that each was descriptive of the nation, the national team or the tournament itself.
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