If you’ve ever visited Nissan.com you’ll know the story of Uzi Nissan being sued by Nissan Motor Corp. Having been sued over trademark infringement before, I know how hard this must have been for Uzi – and how hard the decision to appeal must have been.

Nissan.com is a descriptive name in the case of Uzi Nissan, which means that it’s not a strong trademark (he can’t sue anyone else who is using it descriptively) but he also can’t be sued for using his own name – especially with a history of 20 years of use. Any junior TM attorney will tell you that. And yet Nissan went after him with a vengance, all the way to the supreme court – Nissan Motor Corp’s petition was rejected.

Uzi finally won and kept the name and it must have cost him a small fortune to do so.

Nissan’s behavior makes me ashamed to own a Nissan XTerra and I’ll be considering this when I make my next purchase decision.