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General Motors Wraps Up Legal Battle To Use Corvette Badge In Australia

After four long years of legal battles, General Motors has been awarded the right to use the iconic Chevrolet Corvette badge in Australia, according to a new report from Wheels.

IP Australia, the government agency that oversees trademarks in the country, has finally given the U.S. automaker the OK to use the Corvette logo—two flags with a checkered pattern on one and a stylized Chevrolet bowtie on the other—for reasons not yet disclosed at this time. All we know is GM really wanted to make sure it was allowed to use the emblem down under.

GM’s application to use the Corvette badge was rejected outright after IP Australia claimed the emblem infringed on the Red Cross. The misuse of the Red Cross is protected under the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957, which states the emblem may only be used during times of war or conflict as a “do not fire upon” marking. Traditionally, the badge has been used by hospitals, doctors, ambulances and other medical personnel.

Despite the win for GM, there’s a catch. “It is a condition of registration that, in use, the cross device contained within the trademark will be rendered in colors other than red on a white or silver background, or white or silver on a red background,” IP Australia said.

This means the Corvette badge will need to be tweaked ever so slightly if and when the car makes its way to Australia. However, it’s all but certain the C8 Corvette will be offered in Australia. GM has also moved to trademark the “Zora” name in Australia—a nod to Zora Arkus-Duntov, the patriarch of the Corvette.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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Comments

  1. This is so absurd as to be insensible; I never knew that the Corvette emblem CONTAINED a tiny Red Cross on it anywhere; this will certainly matter in wartime, where medics routinely are fired upon as combatants anyway.

    Morale?

    Don’t drive a Corvette if you are a wartime medic in Australia.

    Reply
    1. Medics get fired on, so who cares anymore, let’s let that go, and focus on getting a tiny detail on a badge to be given its RIGHTS!

      Reply
  2. The scale (pun intended) of this whole thing between GM and IP Australia is completely ridicules. Either someone at the IP office wanted some money or is a complete moron. The “scale” of the icon in the badge is so small you have to be right up on it to even see it, by then there can be virtually no confusion of what it is signifying.

    Reply
    1. Yeah! A decades-old military/honor tradition is trashed, then trying to fix that is obviously bs because we all know that nobody has honor anymore, so somebody must be trying to fraud money out of it, right?

      Reply
  3. A glimpse of what GM’s replacement for rear wheel drive V8 power perhaps.

    Reply
  4. “I totally mistaken your corvette for an emergency medical vehicle,” said no one ever.

    Reply
  5. I can’t see no red on white flag nor a white on red one.

    To the right is a yellow cross, but a very distorted one, on red, and in the little field to the right of it I see a symbolized lily on red.

    The red cross of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) is a very symmetric one, and BTW, the whole flag is just a Swiss flag with reversed colors. The ICRC is a Swiss organization which according to its bylaws is led by a committee of 25 Swiss citizens.

    Reply
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