Polestar is now free to sell its electric cars in France after protracted legal problems with Citroen and DS ended last week.
Based on worldStellantis and Polestar have buried a dash on their logo, which has been absent since 2017.
It is unclear how the impasse was broken, Citroen simply told the French newspaper: “The complaints have been withdrawn. The case has been closed.”
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Polestar Coat of Arms
In mid-2017, Volvo Cars announced their Polestar performance division would become an independent brand, specializing in high-performance electric cars. The company then changed its mission to focus entirely on electric vehicles.
As part of this move, the newly detached brand has ditched its existing blue badging with the word Polestar for a new logo that features a pair of Vs facing each other. The new badge is said to represent Polaris, also known as the North Star.
Citroen, and later DS, sued Polestar in France for copyright and trademark infringement.
In 2020, the court dismissed copyright claims from Citroen and DS, claiming that the logos were not similar enough. It notes that the vs in different logos have different layouts and that the presence of v-based badges is not enough to make products easily confused.
On the other hand, the court agreed with Citroen’s trademark infringement lawsuit, claiming Polestar could indirectly benefit from Citroen being known worldwide as a “chevron trademark”.
Polestar was ordered to pay 150,000 euros ($218,000) in damages and was banned from using its logo in France for six months. The order was never rescinded and effectively prevented the company from selling cars – or even running a website – in France.
Citroen tried to take things further by petitioning an EU court in Brussels to extend the ban for the entire European Union, but this was refused.
This isn’t the first time auto brands have clashed over logos.
Perhaps the most famous case was in 1991 when Renault successfully took Mazda to court over a new company badge.
As a result, Mazda smoothed the inside of its badge to remove any similarities between it and the Renault diamond.
