Honda sues Ford over Lincoln MKX

In the latest skirmish over alphabetic product naming, Honda has filed a lawsuit against Ford alleging the new Lincoln MKX sport-utility vehicle sounds too much like its Acura MDX. Honda is asking Ford not to use the name MKX or any name that too closely resembles MDX. "Our goal is to protect the Acura MDX name by ensuring that there's no consumer confusion between that and the new Lincoln MKX name," said Mike Spencer, a spokesman for Acura. Lincoln recently introduced the alphabetic naming scheme in an effort to align itself with the naming conventions of many premium European and Asian automakers. Both companies say they expect to settle the dispute out of court. Because the name MKX means "Mark X," we suspect Ford will simply change the way it writes the name. In November, Nissan dropped its lawsuit against Audi, which sought to prevent the German automaker from using the Q7 name.