Jaguar Land Rover LOSES Land Rover Defender Trademark battle with Ineos – UPDATED

Jaguar Land Rover has had attempts to trademark the shape of the original Land Rover Defender rejected in the battle with Ineos and the Grenadier.

Update 4/8/20: As this story from last November states, Jaguar Land Rover appealed the decision to reject their trademark application for the Land Rover Defender. That appeal has now been heard and dismissed, with the judge agreeing with the original decision to reject the application.

When we revealed the plans by Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos to build a ‘new’ Land Rover Defender back in 2016, there were reports Ineos wanted to buy the rights and tooling for the Defender from JLR.

But, unsurprisingly, that came to nothing, but JLR did react to the Ineos plans by starting attempts to trademark the design of the Defender from the original Land Rover tight through to the run-out Defender

Unsurprisingly, Ineos filed objections to the trademark plans by JLR, but JLR has been pursuing the trademarks ever since.

JLR even went so far as to conduct a public poll asking participants if they recognised the shape of the Defender (they asked 495 people) with between 20 per cent and 40 per cent saying they did.

But JLR’s efforts have come to nought, with the Intellectual Property Office ruling that the Defender was not significantly different to other 4x4s to justify trademarks.

Despite that, it seems JLR plan to appeal the ruling. They said:

The Defender is an iconic vehicle which is part of Jaguar Land Rover’s past, present and future.

Its unique shape is recognised around the world, with the heritage shape being protected in other key markets.

Protecting our intellectual property is something we take very seriously, so we are appealing the Intellectual Property Office ruling on the protection of the Defender shape trademarks.