August 2018. Consumers are unlikely to confuse the logo of Amsterdam-based jeweller Rebel & Rich with that of Rolls-Royce, so there’s no infringement. That’s the conclusion reached by the District Court in The Hague on 13 June after Rolls-Royce began legal proceedings against the Dutch company.

Sufficiently different

Rolls-Royce, which also owns a trademark for jewels, had not only asked the court to order Rebel & Rich to stop using the logo but had also claimed some of the company’s profits. However, the court decided that the Rebel & Rich logo was sufficiently different from that of Rolls-Royce. Consumers, they concluded, would simply compare the two trademarks as a whole and the words ‘Rebel & Rich’ would provide the differentiation.

Never used on its own

That said, the RR element in the Rebel & Rich logo could infringe Rolls-Royce’s trademark rights, but the Court concluded that since it was never used on its own but always in conjunction with the words ‘Rebel & Rich’, there was no problem