>Many of the VW model names are words used in any language, often different
>types of winds, but also variations of sports and wolf. Can VW claim the
>rights to many of these names?
They don't and don't have to they just name their cars that way, there are
no rights involved...
Hey, you are more than welcome to build a car and name it Passat,
this is definetely two feet away from the point of trademark and
intellectuial property,

here is by your own reasoning the answer : You cannot trademark the
brandanme Boston but you can do the Boston acoustic�

 Not likely, but then again, anything is
>possible. One other example is the US speaker factory Boston Acoustics, they
>have the name Boston as their TM, maybe the city pays them for it?

 sure not...
>
>PerL
>88 Syncro