Mahindra to contest brand rights of BE 6e with IndiGo in court

Mumbai (The Uttam Hindu): Leading automaker Mahindra on Saturday said it will strongly contest the brand rights of its electric SUV ‘BE 6e’ in court, after InterGlobe Aviation Limited, which runs IndiGo airline, sued Mahindra over using the name ‘6E’.

Mahindra’s mark is “BE 6e” not the standalone “6E,” the company said, adding that it reserves the right to the brand name “BE 6e”.

Earlier this week, InterGlobe Aviation filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Mahindra Electric for using ‘6E’ in its new car called Mahindra BE 6e. Indigo’s “6E” represents an airline.

In a fresh statement, Mahindra said it find it “unseemly that two large, Indian multinationals should engage in a distracting and unnecessary conflict when, in fact, we should be championing each other’s growth and expansion”.

“We are hence taking the decision to brand our product the “BE 6,” it added.

“We believe it differs fundamentally from IndiGo’s ‘6E,’ which represents an airline, eliminating any risk of confusion. The distinct styling further emphasizes its uniqueness. Our registration application is for an entirely different industry sector and product and hence do not see any conflict,” said the automaker.

In fact, “we would like to point out that in the past, Tata Motors had objected to InterGlobe using the IndiGo mark, given their Tata Indigo car brand”.

“InterGlobe continues to use the mark IndiGo in a different industry and business. We therefore find their objection to BE 6e to be inconsistent with their own previous conduct,” Mahindra said, adding that “we would not like to get distracted from our vision of popularising electric transport in India”.

It further added that the claim by IndiGo is “baseless and if not challenged, will set an unhealthy precedent of monopolizing alpha-numeric 2-character marks, despite our mark being distinctive and different. This will be enormously constraining for all companies across industries and sectors”.

The case will come up for hearing on December 9, according to reports.