Personal Injury Law

Harley Davidson Loses a Trademark Lawsuit for the ?Sportster? Name In Mexico.

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq.

My friend Ed from Blawg Review sent me a link to a story which was written by Steve from Bikernewsonline.com. Steve has posted comments here on the Biker Law Blog in the past. He broke what I consider to be a major story.

Apparently, Mexican Businessman Alberto Lenz has prevailed in a lawsuit against Harley Davidson for the “Sportster” Trademark in Mexico after a four year battle. What is even more interesting is that Mr. Lenz was willing to sell the Trademark to Harley Davidson for the sum of $100,000 U.S. dollars. Harley Davidson refused Mr. Lenz’s offer and will now have to pay Mr. Lenz approximately 40% of the sales price of every Harley Davidson Sportster that was sold in Mexico since 1989.

The Harley Davidson “Sportster” brand motorcycle is Harley Davidson's low end production motorcycle that comes in either 883 or 1200 cc configurations, and is their lowest priced street motorcycle.

The judgment means that Harley Davidson will have to pay Lenz millions of dollars. You can read a link to the story on bikernewsonline.com that was written by Steve by clicking here now. You can read the story in Spanish from La Journada by clicking here now. Here is a link to the translated article.

What I cannot ascertain is if the Court decision actually prohibits Harley Davidson from selling motorcycles under the Sportster brand name in Mexico now. I would assume that it does.

I guess that a simple solution for Harley Davidson would be to either try to work out a deal with Mr. Lenz to purchase or license the Mexican Trademark, or to re-brand the Sportster motorcycle for the Mexican market. Either way they made a huge blunder by losing this lawsuit, when they could have owned the Trademark for $100,000. Now they will have to pay millions!

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2007

Full post as published by Biker Law Blog on December 21, 2007 (boomark / email).