The organization of the Formula 1 Grand Prix has lost patience with merchants who use the image of the famous car race to promote services offered by their establishment. Over the past year, warnings have been issued to several Montreal restaurateurs to stop using terms like “Grand Prix” or “Formula 1” without permission.
For many years, the Auberge Saint-Gabriel has been celebrating during the flagship tourist event for speed enthusiasts. Until the pandemic, the establishment located in Old Montreal even paid the promoter to be an official restaurant of the Grand Prix du Canada. However, just after the 2022 Grand Prix, the owner, Marc Bolay, claims that his company received a formal notice from the international organization of Formula 1. It was ordered to stop using the terms “Formula 1” and “Grand Prix”, among others, in all its communications, he said.
“We were very surprised and disappointed. We like to use real words, to be able to say that we are proud to welcome F1 fans. It’s a shame to have restrictions, when in the end, we also promote their Grand Prix,” commented Mr. Bolay.
The Inn has undertaken in writing to no longer use these keywords. In all its communications, advertisements and social networks, it had to replace them with more general expressions like “race weekend”.
Mr. Bolay points out, however, that these changes did not prevent his restaurant from being busier than ever this weekend.
contentious words
And he is not the only one in this situation. The owner of the French bistro Chez Alexandre, Alain Creton, claims to have also recently received a formal notice for the use of the term “Formula One” and “F1” in a few places. On his special menu, for example, he replaced those words with a small checkered flag.
“You can’t even use Formula One in a hashtag,” he said.
Other downtown restaurants instead said they inherited warnings from the Canadian Grand Prix organization for the same reasons. They scoured their social media to purge them of contentious words.
Sandra Ferreira, director of operations of the Ferreira Group which owns the Ferreira Café, has not received a message from the organization of the Grand Prix. She did, however, see a video that the restaurant had posted on Instagram in which the “F1” was mentioned to be removed by the social network following a report by the international organization of Formula 1 for unauthorized use of the brand.
An image to preserve
The only official Formula 1 event in Montreal is the car race which takes place at the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit, argues the organization of the Canadian Grand Prix. The activities or festivities taking place in town these days – on Crescent and Peel streets in particular – have not received the guarantee of the Grand Prix, which is why the organization has decided to tighten the screws on merchants who take too many liberties in their promotional communications.
“We are a franchise, we have this right of use, and when people usurp and use the logos or official names of the event without authorization, it may be that sometimes we intervene”, indicated François Dumontier, president and CEO of the Canadian Grand Prix, during an interview with The duty.
“We have values, we have ways of doing things, we do it in a very professional way and sometimes other organizations will organize things on the sidelines of the Grand Prix which do not respect our values and are not up to standard”, he adds.
The Montreal Grand Prix also wants to dissociate its image from any form of activity related to sexual exploitation and prostitution, indicates a source within the organization. Two employees also keep a constant watch on social networks and the Internet to see how and in what context the Grand Prix brand is used in order to intervene if necessary.
What legal basis
On the official F1 website it is stated that not only the logo is a registered trademark, but also Formula 1, Formula One, F1, FIA Formula One World Championship, Grand Prix, F1 Grand Prix and Formula 1 Grand Prix. The Canadian Grand Prix is also protected, according to the Montreal event’s website.
These registered trademarks effectively confer a monopoly on the use of these words, says business law professor Benjamin Lehaire of TELUQ University. However, he is surprised that the organization polices Montreal businesses in this way.
“You are creating a public and international event. In practice, it is extremely complicated to discipline companies in the Montreal region for the mere mention of words,” commented Mr. Lehaire.
He said he was curious to see what the courts would decide in a case like this, given the notorious and public nature of the event. “Doesn’t the event belong a bit also to everyone and to the economic fabric? he asks himself.
With Eric Desrosiers