So we contacted Lockheed and told them that we would abandon the use of the "Skunkworks" name, however because we already stockpiled a significant amount of inventory, we would need 12 months to sell the inventory and transition to the use of a new name. In actuality we figured that it would take 6 months at the earliest and 9 months at the latest to sell all the "Skunkworks" inventory. Unfortunately Lockheed thought differently and would only give us 30 days to transition to the new name. Group-A responded that it would be impossible to transition in that short period of time without suffering significant financial loss. Group-A told Lockheed that they could agree to give us sufficient time to transition to a new name, in which case either party would not need to spend anymore money on legal fees; or they could insist on 30days in which case Group-A was prepared to defend against a lawsuit long enough to transition to a new name at which time it would abandon the “skunkworks” name anyways (even though Group-A knew it would cost a significant amount of money to defend a lawsuit against Lockheed, the legal costs would amount to significantly less than if it had to destroy remaining inventory). In essence Group-A told Lockheed that they could grant us the time for free, or Group-A would buy the time at significant costs to both parties, while also putting their trademark at risk at being made generic. Unfortunately Lockheed decided to take a strong posture by not compromising. A lawsuit was filed and month of back and forth lawyer letter writing ensued. They tried various tactics “threats” to make Group-A concede, but Group-A did not. Finally, they tried to schedule a court hearing/action on a date when they knew Group-A’s attorney would be out of the country on business (eventhough they were given sufficient advanced notice and had agreed not to schedule any sort of action during that time). As a result Group-A’s attorneys threatened to file for sanctions against Lockheed for their actions. That’s when Lockheed’s did a complete turnaround, abandoned the posturing, and we reached an agreement within a week.

With the lawsuit behind us, Group-A had to choose a new name. At that time there was already a significant amount of brand equity built in the “skunkworks racing project” name. Many enthusiasts were calling us “skunk” for short, so Group-A decided that it would only make sense to keep using a name with “skunk” in it. The reason why Group-A did not just use the name “Skunk” is because the name “skunk” is already generic by nature. Taking a cue from the Japanese Option2 magazine and ESPN2, Group-A decided to change the name to “SKUNK2”. The “2” would signify the next evolution of the “skunk” brand. Furthermore, because there is no such word as a “skunk2”, it make the trademark easily defendable.

Today the “Skunk2” name is a registered trademark in the USA and several other key countries throughout the world.