Perhaps if the SFAR imitated the trade dress of the SCAR they’d have a case. But IMO firearms naming conventions are too similar to make these kinds of arguments.
You can play this game for years. Is the ACR going to create market confusion with the SCAR? What about of the number of ‘not ar-15’ names do those impinge on Colt’s trademark?
That’s what I was thinking but forgot to add in another comment. If it was the name in addition to the rifle physically resembling a SCAR, I could see an actual case where FN wins.
As it is, my understanding is that trademarks are required to be vigorously protected (as opposed to copywrite, where the holder can suffer no penalty for not caring about some knockoffs while suing others) so it may be a case of FN pursuing the lawsuit while knowing it will lose. The goal being to establish a record of vigorous protection so that when they sue the maker of the hypothetical “S-CAR” the courts have no question about their protectiveness of trademark. But that’s my non-law understanding from watching YouTube lawyers.
Perhaps if the SFAR imitated the trade dress of the SCAR they’d have a case. But IMO firearms naming conventions are too similar to make these kinds of arguments.
You can play this game for years. Is the ACR going to create market confusion with the SCAR? What about of the number of ‘not ar-15’ names do those impinge on Colt’s trademark?
That’s what I was thinking but forgot to add in another comment. If it was the name in addition to the rifle physically resembling a SCAR, I could see an actual case where FN wins.
As it is, my understanding is that trademarks are required to be vigorously protected (as opposed to copywrite, where the holder can suffer no penalty for not caring about some knockoffs while suing others) so it may be a case of FN pursuing the lawsuit while knowing it will lose. The goal being to establish a record of vigorous protection so that when they sue the maker of the hypothetical “S-CAR” the courts have no question about their protectiveness of trademark. But that’s my non-law understanding from watching YouTube lawyers.