Abundance Of Cadillac Model Names Appears In New Trademark Filings

Nearly two dozen Cadillac model names appeared in new trademark filings with the United States Patent and Trademark (USPTO) office, Cadillac Society has discovered.

Cadillac’s parent firm, General Motor Company, filed 19 trademark applications on August 8^th, 2018, with the names spanning the majority of the potential future Cadillac product range. The filings contain CT# and XT# model names with the Cadillac name, as well as without.

Under Cadillac’s recently-established vehicle naming strategy, CT refers to passenger cars while XT refers to crossovers. A number after the T designates the position of the model in Cadillac’s product hierarchy.

All of the applications list the following Goods and Services category: “Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles, sport utility vehicles, trucks, vans, engines therefor and structural parts thereof.”

Modern Cadillac Model Name Trademark Filings

Absent Models

Models absent from these August filings include:

• CT6 and Cadillac CT6: the former was successfully registered on August 2, 2016, while the latter was abandoned due to the successful registration of the former. According to trademark lawyers, registering “Cadillac CT6” over “CT6” is not desirable, as it limits the scope in which the name can be used (only in conjunction with Cadillac, rather than without)
• XT5 and Cadillac XT5: the former was successfully registered on June 30, 2015, while the latter has been filed for in November 2014 but has not yet been registered and will likely be abandoned due to the reason explained above.
• CT2, CT3, CT4: filed for on November 7, 2014 and have yet to be successfully registered or refiled.
• CT5: filed for on January 17, 2018 and gave yet to be successfully registered.
• Cadillac CT5: filed for on March 6, 2018 and has yet to be successfully registered.

Explaining The Filings

As our lawyer friends have explained to us, these filings are all about the not-to-simple inner workings of the trademark registration process.

To wit, GM/Cadillac can’t be granted trademark rights without demonstrating to the USPTO that it has a real-world product or service by the name being applied for. This policy is meant to substantially decrease or otherwise eliminate trademark squatting. With the exception of the CT6 and XT5, the models in question have yet to be launched, therefore preventing the automaker from demonstrating to the trademark office that it has earnest plans to bring those models to market as real-world products. Notably, an applicant has three years to show this to the trademark office. Upon failing to do so, the trademark application lapses and is considered to be abandoned.

As such, the reason for these filings is ultimately rather simple: the time limit on the previous filings expired, prompting GM/Cadillac to file new applications, which give it another three years to demonstrate to the USPTO intent to bring real-world products to market by the names being applied for.

The Cadillac Society Take

Trademark filings by themselves do not confirm, validate or otherwise substantiate any future product plans, even those that are being applied for in the trademark process. They do, however, show a glimpse into Cadillac’s inner-workings, or more specifically – what the luxury automaker is considering in relation to its lineup.

In this case, Cadillac is considering an entire lineup of vehicles ranging from the CT2 and XT2 all the way up to CT8 and XT8. This, however, is nothing new – since the luxury division has already filed trademark application for these nameplates back in 2014. These initial applications have lapsed or are close to lapsing as a result of GM/Cadillac not being able to show the USPTO any real-world products by those names. Logically ,the XT5 and CT6 are exceptions.

As such, GM/Cadillac is re-filing applications for the nameplates it wasn’t able to register in order to have the option to trademark them completely once it has actual product to show to the trademark office. This process will likely continue well into the future until the names being applied for are fully launched. But by the time that happens, Cadillac will have already shown the vehicles in question, in much the same way it revealed the 2019 XT4, but has yet to be granted the trademark for the name, since the model has not yet gone on sale – something that is expected to take place this fall.