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Just looking at ebay and found something that may be of interest:

The 1999 Packard v-12 prototype

cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330333566503

Enjoy

it's been up for sale before

turd. all GM parts, how is that Packard? ooooooh Valve covers with packard wwritten on them!

how is that Packard?

I agree with your sentiments, but to answer your question, it's a Packard because the company that built it bought the rights to the company name and some of the trademarks.

I doubt it ever had a chance, but whatever chance it did have was certainly not helped by his cease & desist order against the Packard clubs for using the name in their publications.

Quote:
Avanti issued a similar cease and desist order to vendors in the hobby circle back in the late 1980s. By virtue of their ownership of the trademark(s), they were completely within their rights to do that. Yet, the Big Three have long forced vendors to pay licensing fees, lest they suffer raids and seizures of contraband property by the FBI.

Regardless, I do feel that the AZ company could have handled the Packard trademark situation better. Moreover, I believe that PMCC granted PAC some sort of permission to use the script and coat of arms back in 1953. If only out of courtesy, any subsequent owner of the trademark rights should have extended same.

I don't, however, believe that the club now has a legitmate and exclusive right to said trademarks. I find it incredible that the USPTO would grant PAC such rights when so many other entities have been using the script and symbols in same markets, with no authorization, for decades. The club might have filled out the paperwork and paid their fees, but I don't think their claim would hold up in a court of law.

Brian, I don't know if there is any corporate vestige left of Studebaker-Worthington or whoever might have succeeded them, so I don't know who else might have a claim to rights. But think back to the 3M and Scotch Tape story, 3M lost the rights to the Scotch trademark primarily because they failed to take steps to enforce their ownership of it. If there is a corporate vestige of Studebaker or it's successors left and they have taken no action all these years, from what I know of trademark law they have absolutely no rights. I don't think there is any mystery to the current trademark matters, PAC has legitimate title to some and The Packard Motor Car company to others, and they have both taken steps to publicize their ownership, at least that' how I understand it.

I've heard more than one story about someone living in a shotgun shack out on the bayou who bought the right to the Packard name and logos, but the one claim I ever heard that seemed to hold water was WRT Bayliff. However, I suspect that those rights lapsed and the AZ company had to start from scratch - hence their marketing of all manner of trinkets.

I'm no lawyer (and don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that the extent to which PAC has tried to exert its control of trademark rights has raised some eyebrows. I wouldn't be surprised if some one successfully challenges them on it someday.

As I tried to point out with the Scotch tape story, exerting control is a requirement to maintain a trademark.

Though I have some passing familiarity with the Bayliff products, I know nothing about their machinations regarding trademarks, nor (honestly) do I care. I'm not a trademark lawyer either, though I did have a fair amount of exposure to it and patent law for much of my career. Life is much more enjoyable now.

Moot point anyway with respect to making a new motor vehicle, no matter what name it carried it can't be a Packard in the true sense.

there was a guy in Florida building Packard boats (used the script logo) - was there any issue with him?

Owen -

I understand what you're saying with the 3M/Scotch case, but the flip side of their failure to exercise and enforce trademark rights supports a point that I was trying to make - that dilution of such rights to the Packard trademark may have occurred in the years since they were exercised. It doesn't make sense that someone can then lay claim to names or logos that have been in generic use for so long.