The court ultimately ruled that car buyers could be confused by the two similar trademarks, and ordered Polestar to pay Citroen 150,000 euros in damages and litigation costs and to ban the company’s trademark in France for six months.
Image credit: Citroen
Image credit: Polestar
Due to the 2020 ruling, French people visiting the Polestar website will only see a white page that reads: “The French public is temporarily unable to access the Polestar website due to geographical restrictions on the use of the no. 016898173 and no. 01689532 trademarks in France. .”
The trademark ban was never officially lifted, and earlier this year, Citroen applied to the European Court of Justice to ban Polestar from using its trademark across the EU. But this summer, the two companies reached an agreement to allow Polestar to be sold in the French market, although the terms of the agreement between the two parties were not disclosed. A Polestar spokesman confirmed the agreement.
Polestar started out as a performance sub-brand of Volvo Cars but is now a separate, publicly traded company that aims to sell 290,000 pure electric vehicles globally by 2025, a 10-fold increase from 2021 sales.