August Horch walked out on his own car company — and lost the right to his own name

Founders who split from a company still carrying their name should settle who owns that name in writing — 'it's my surname' is not a defense a trademark court will accept.

August Horch had already left one carmaker he helped build, at Carl Benz's works, to start his own in 1899: A. Horch & Cie. By the mid-1900s it made quality touring cars in Saxony, but Horch ran it as an engineer, chasing refinement and racing wins over cost control. By 1909 the shareholders funding his expansion had had enough: Germany's Patent and Trademark Office records that 'dissatisfied shareholders demanded changes in the company, partly due to a lack of racing success.' Rather than accept a board running it his way, Horch chose to leave.

He didn't retire. Weeks later, in Zwickau, he set up a second car company and — assuming the name was simply his to use — called it August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. That assumption was the mistake: A. Horch & Cie. still existed and still owned the trademark 'Horch.' The old company sued its own founder for using his surname on a competing product, and the case reached the Reichsgericht, Germany's supreme court in Leipzig, which ruled for the plaintiff — the name belonged to the company, not the man who'd given it his.

With his own name off-limits, Horch met backers Paul and Franz Fikentscher at Franz's home to find a replacement. Franz's son Heinrich, doing his Latin homework nearby, offered the fix: 'Audi' is the Latin imperative of 'horchen' — the same word, translated, that no lawsuit could touch. Audi Automobilwerke GmbH was registered on 25 April 1910, and Horch spent the rest of his life signing letters 'Ihr Audi-Horch.'

He started a second company using his surname, but the old firm sued and won, so he rebranded as Audi, the Latin imperative of 'horchen', which no lawsuit could touch.

Horch treated a boardroom dispute as a reason to leave rather than negotiate, and left without settling who kept the one asset — the company name — that both sides would need next

He assumed a founder's own surname travels with him when he starts over; a trademark registered by the company he'd left said otherwise, and a supreme court agreed

The fight was avoidable: a licensing or non-compete clause at the first split would have been routine paperwork, and instead became a Reichsgericht case his own name lost

When you leave a company that carries your name, the name usually stays behind with the trademark — settle who owns it before you found the next one, not after a lawsuit decides for you.

Audi went on to outlast the company that sued it into existence: A. Horch & Cie. was folded into Auto Union in 1932 alongside Audi, DKW and Wanderer — the four rings of today's Audi badge are that 1932 merger, not Horch's original firm. The story is now standard telling in every account of the brand's origin, repeated in Audi's own company history and in German patent-office retrospectives on the case: the manufacturer now selling cars under 'Audi' exists because a court decided a founder's own name wasn't his to reuse.