Lexus trademarks NX 200t and NX 300h

Another day…another report of a Toyota trademark filing. Or two of them, to be precise: NX 200t and NX 300h, both filed on 15 October 2012 for “use in association with automobiles and structural parts thereof”.

In the United States, Trademark Application No. 85754116 was filed for NX 200t, and Trademark Application No. 85754176 for NX 300h. In Canada, Trade-Mark Application No. 1598147 was filed for NX200t, with its immediate followup No. 1598148 applied for NX300h.

Figuring out what these trademarks will eventually go with is pretty straightforward. They follow a Lexus, as opposed to Toyota or Scion brand naming convention. The second letter X denotes a crossover or SUV. In other words, this is seemingly the RAV4-derived sub-RX Lexus crossover that the world’s automotive press persists in calling by the more Citroën or Mazda-associated CX and that this author previously believed would wear the trademarked-in-2009 TX prefix. As for the numbers, those, too, are fairly obvious. The 200t is the new 2.0-liter, turbo-charged AR engine set to launch in 2014, bearing either the 3AR-FTE or 3AR-GTE engine code, depending on whether it uses an economy-minded narrow-angle valve DOHC (dual overhead camshaft) head or a more performance-oriented wide-angle valve DOHC. The 300h, meanwhile, is the 2AR-FXE 2.5-liter 4-cylinder Atkinson cycle hybrid engine used on the current Toyota Camry Hybrid, Lexus ES 300h and upcoming Toyota Avalon Hybrid. It is unlikely to use the D-4S dual direct+port injection system in the front-wheel-drive-centric Lexus NX. The first part of our TMC Environmental Technology Development update article features commentary on both engines.

Finally, it seems that Toyota and Nissan seem to be playing a game of tit-for-tat with dormant two-letter model prefixes. The NX badge adorned a Nissan Sentra-derived sports coupe in the early 1990’s, and Lexus’ using this previously Nissan-centric name might be payback of sorts for the latter’s usurping of Lexus’ unused, trademarked JX prefix for the Infiniti JX crossover SUV.

Our thanks go out to my.IS moderator k3vo for bringing this to our attention in a my.IS thread.