Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is in legal disputes with Mexican businessman José Aguirre Campos, director of StarGroup, who claims that his StarLink telecommunications brand will not be sold to the U.S. company or any other, reported Sputnik.
SpaceX allegedly stripped the Mexican company of its trademark, and Aguirre Campos, originally from Zacatecas, filed two appeals in which he hopes to restore his rights.
“We filed two injunctions, and we are calm and confident that this will protect us and restore our rights. We are going to die on the line,” the Mexican told Milenio.
StarGroup is a Mexican company dedicated to the telecommunications sector, owner of the StarGo, StarLine, StarTv, StarKa, StarGroup, and StarLink brands since 2015.
In 2018, Musk’s company sued the Mexican Institute of Intellectual Property (IMPI) of Mexico for the revocation and nullity of the Mexican trademark.
The complaint was denied, but the Forbes billionaire insisted before the Specialized Intellectual Property Chamber of the Federal Court of Administrative Justice (TFJA), who finally accepted it, which Aguirre called an “injustice.”
Elon Musk’s lawyers reportedly sought Aguirre Campos to buy his trademark, but the businessman said he was not interested in selling it.
“We don’t have the StarLink trademark registered to see who wants to have it, or so we can sell it later. No, how are we going to sell it? With it, our clients know us,” said the Zacatecas businessman.
Aguirre explains that one of the attempts to strip him of his trademark consisted in assuring that the registration of StarLink was done in a personal capacity when the domain belongs to SpaceX: “First you go and register the trademark, then you make the company. They accuse me of registering the trademark in my name and saying that the company uses it. This has no basis. That is how half of the Mexican companies would be exposed to this“.
“Our rights were violated. It was an injustice what the Court of Administrative Justice did. The law is not applied according to the size of the companies, how powerful their owners may be, or the amount of money they have; the law is applied to give the right to those who have it, and that is why the law will protect us,” Aguirre emphasized.
After learning of the case, several Mexican companies expressed their solidarity with Aguirre. The general directors of UBIX, Sebastián Monterrubio, and of Elara, Marco Illescas, asked the authorities to weigh the efforts of the Mexicans against the voracious interests of international businessmen.
The owner of StarLink in Mexico refuses to change the name and does not want to cede it to the American company. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s StarLink requires the brand to operate in Mexico starting in October and has its sights set on global expansion.