Fairfax 4.0T

Those Europeans have no respect for intellectual property rights!
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BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--A European court Wednesday rejected Audi AG's bid to trademark letters describing its fuel-injected cars.

Audi has fought since 1996 to protect the letters ``TDI,'' which stand for Turbo Diesel Injection or Turbo Direct Injection, but EU trademark officials turned them down.

Audi appealed to the Luxembourg-based Court of First Instance, which upheld the trademark office.

Judges said the combinations of letters are commonly used in the motor industry and that the form of the mark ``TDI'' wasn't sufficiently unusual.

``Audi had produced no evidence enabling it to find that the mark 'TDI' had become distinctive,'' the judges said.

Audi has two months to appeal the decision to Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice, which is also based in Luxembourg.

Audi is a brand of German auto maker Volkswagen AG.

SloopJohnB

And MB loses right to "SL500" and all variants thereof.