Sports cars are built for the best driving experience. The wind in your hair, the power at the touch of the gas pedal and the angry rumble from a high performance engine are just some attributes customers expect from a Porsche (POAHY) -).
When the legendary German marque entered into the electric vehicle market against the likes of Tesla (TSLA) -) and BMW (BMWYY) -) with the Taycan in 2020, it knew it had to stand out in order to compete.
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Amongst the plethora of technology crammed into its high-performance electric sports car, a peculiar feature created to enhance the driving experience recently failed to be successfully trademarked in the European Union: its fake engine noise.
With no gas engine to provide an exhaust note, electric vehicles are traditionally very silent, which is a caveat recognized by Porsche when developing the Taycan. To give their customers the feeling of a signature Porsche driving experience, the experts from Stuttgart developed their own artificial engine noise to compliment the car’s driving dynamics.
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According to a report in The Telegraph, Porsche attempted to trademark its signature “noise” to the European Intellectual Property Office, stating in its filing that the noise its electric vehicles emit is “futuristic, melodious, and has a certain tempo as well as motives and dynamics.”
They also claimed that it was “enough to evoke recognition” of a Porsche, noting that the noise of their cars and only their cars “combines the typical features of a musical composition, namely dynamics structure and different pitches, and brings them together to create a memorable and unusual sound.”
For those curious to what such an “unusual sound” sounds like, here is a demonstration by Carscoops:
Additionally, Porsche also compared this noise to that of the “opening motif of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, the sound of KITT’s scanner from the Knight Rider television series, or the sound of the Lightsabers from the Star Wars film series.”
The EUIPO didn’t buy any of that, stating to The Telegraph that “does not distinguish a Porsche vehicle from any other,” and that “the fact that the vehicles themselves do not produce that sound may be known to consumers, but in no way gives them the ability to distinguish the application’s goods and services from similar ones offered by other companies.”
Porsche recognizes that it is hard to stand out in a crowded field of electric vehicles, but its strong motorsports-backed brand identity is more than enough to attract buyers, even if its efforts to trademark its innovations fall short.
According to a report by The Drive, Porsche will appeal the EUIPO’s decision.
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