A trademark for the names ‘R12’ – a planned cruiser model sitting below the R18 – and ‘Roctane’ has been filed by BMW recently. The trademarks for the Roctane badge has already been approved in Germany, while international rights are pending. The application, however, clearly references its usage on a motorcycle.

• R12 is intended to sit below the flagship cruiser, the R18

• Roctane name doesn’t align with traditional BMW Motorrad nomenclature

• Roctane could be a performance-oriented machine

Positioning of the R12 in BMW’s range

The similiarities in the names of the R12 and R18 are hard to ignore, and it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that it is intended to be a smaller capacity cruiser that’s positioned under the positively gargantuan R18.

What about the Roctane?

Most BMW bikes are badged logically with letters representing engine layout followed by numbers indicative of their capacities, but the Roctane name makes it slightly harder to guess where it will land in BMW Motorrad’s vast catalogue of motorcycles. 

To get some idea, let’s split the name into two parts – R and octane. The first part is easy to decipher for those familiar with what each letter in the BMW Motorrad line-up stands for. Here, R stands for motorcycles powered by boxer twin engines. The second part, octane, could hint at this not being a laidback machine, and having some performance chops.

For those of you with a keen memory, BMW had previewed a concept back in 2019 badged the R18/2, which was a low-slung and partly faired version of the R18, which wasn’t launched at the time. We wouldn’t be surprised if the Roctane is based on the R18 or the yet to be revealed R12.

Earlier, trademark applications filed by BMW for the R18 Transcontinental touring bike and the CE 04 electric scooter gave away the existence of these models well before they were revealed to the public.

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Do you agree with our predictions for these patented models, or do you think it could go in another direction? Let us know in the comments section below.