Another prosecution witness, Tal Maor, testified in his affidavit that he was frequently exposed to many cases in which consumers who wished to purchase Toyota vehicles mistakenly believed that the defendant's sales center was a Toyota authorized dealership, and that when this was made clear to those consumers, they expressed surprise that this was the state of things. He also testified that the same consumers pointed to the use of the plaintiff's name as the defendant's business name, as well as to the design of the sales center similar to a Toyota authorized dealership, to the use of the plaintiff's silver logo in the business and to the domain name, and to the various publications from which they concluded that it was a Toyota authorized dealership. In his cross-examination, Maor further testified that he was exposed to consumer errors "almost on a daily basis" (Prov. p. 46, paras. 3-27). It should be noted that Maor is the vice president of the Toyota dealership in Nes Ziona, which is a direct and significant competitor of the defendant in the same geographical area (Prov. pp. 49, paras. 31-34).
- The defendant, Raz, on the other hand, testified that the use of the name "Toyota Rehovot" and the term "licensed parallel importer" was based on a legal and professional basis. The defendant sells original Toyota vehicles and spare parts (alongside non-original spare parts as required by law), which originate from parallel imports approved by the Ministry of Transport (Appendix 2-3 to Raz's affidavit). He also testified that the defendant holds a licensed garage license from the Ministry of Transport for Toyota and Lexus vehicles and is a member of the Garage Association. At the relevant times, it was under the supervision of Global Automax in a tax appeal, which was the largest parallel importer in Israel from which the defendant purchased Toyota's vehicles. He also testified that the defendant is connected to and subscribed to the up-to-date technical information interface for Toyota vehicles directly from the Toyota technical information website.
He also testified that the defendant joined the Ministry of Transport's pilot called "Expert Garage", whose existence is regulated in the Licensing Regulations, and accordingly it currently serves as an expert garage and meets all the requirements of the Ministry of Transport required for this status. The witness clarified that by virtue of the requirements of the regulations in this matter, the defendant is obligated to place signs of the vehicle models in which it specializes in such a way that this information can be seen at the entrance to the business. Therefore, according to Raz, the defendant makes use of the plaintiff's trademarks in order to describe the vehicle models in which she specializes and is authorized to handle as an expert garage (paragraphs 10-11, 24-31 of Raz's affidavit, Appendices 10-12). The witness emphasized that the defendant's employees had worked in the service garages of the official importer in the past and that the defendant took care to train them and provide them with professional training and refreshments. When the defendant contacted its employees for the purpose of holding training days, Union Motors' attorney replied that the cost of one day of training is ILS 12,000, a price that is unreasonable and does not meet the requirements of section 80 of the Licensing of Services and Professions in the Automotive Industry Law, 5776-2016, which states that Union Motors is obligated to comply with the demand to coordinate training and professional training in exchange for a reasonable price (paragraphs 32-34 of Raz's affidavit).