Kawasaki Trademarks J500 and J125

Dennis Chung
by Dennis Chung

For the longest time, Kawasaki stood out among the Big 4 Japanese motorcycle makers as being the only one that did not produce scooters for western markets. That changed in 2013 with the introduction of the J300 scooter for the Europe. The J300 may not be Kawasaki’s only scooter for much longer however, as the company has filed trademarks for J500 and J125.

Discuss this at our Kawasaki J300 Forum.

According to trademark filings submitted to Europe’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, the J500 and J125 names will be used for:

“Vehicles; apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water; in particular motorcycles; Engines for the aforesaid goods; engines for all aforesaid goods; Detachable panniers for motorcycles; bags for attachment to the petrol tanks of motorcycles for transporting goods; Parts and fittings for the aforesaid goods not included in other classes.”

Don’t be fooled by the word “motorcycle” here though; the same description was used in filings to trademark “Kawasaki J300,” so the J500 and J125 will likely also be scooters.

What remains to be seen is whether the new scooters will be based on Kymco scooters. The J300 is essentially a rebranded Kymco Downtown 300i, using the same 299cc liquid-cooled Single. Kymco produces a number of 125cc scooters for various markets, and a Kawasaki variant could be based on the Downtown 125i or G-Dink 125i. Kymco also produces the Xciting 500 Ri which could form the basis for a Kawasaki J500.

On the other hand, Kawasak may begin developing its own scooter technology instead of relying on Kymco. Licensing the technology may have made sense for Kawasaki’s initial dip into the scooter segment but if Kawasaki intends to offer an entire scooter lineup, it may want to use its own R&D.

[Source: OHIM]

Dennis Chung
Dennis Chung

Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.

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