Citroën and Polestar Reach Agreement Over Logo
Citroën and Polestar have settled a trademark dispute over logos that prevented the Swedish electric car company (originally a sub-brand of Volvo and now along with Volvo — Chinese owned by Geely ) from selling vehicles in France since 2020.
In September 2018 we wrote that the Polestar logo was eerily close in design to Citroën’s “double chevron” design that it has used since 1919 as well as the logo of DS Automobiles, formerly a Citroën sub-brand.
Though Polestar claims its badge is designed to resemble the North Star, Citroën had argued successfully in a French court that car buyers could be confused by the similarity.
The case dates back to 2017. In a June 2020 ruling, the court, ordered Polestar to pay Citroën 150,000 euros in damages as well as legal fees, and banned the use of the Polestar logo in France for six months.
The injunction was never formally lifted, and Citroën earlier this year had petitioned a European court to expand it across the EU.
As a result of the 2020 ruling, French visitors to Polestar’s website saw only a white page with the message: “Access to the Polestar site is not accessible to the French public due to territorial restrictions on the use of French trademarks no. 016898173 and no. 01689532.”