"Ford is going to exercise its right on the Rover licence, notably to protect the image of its British subsidiary Land Rover," the BMW spokesman said, without giving a value for the transaction.
Ford bought Land Rover from BMW in 2000 as well as a right to acquire the Rover brand name.
Business papers had speculated about a possible sale of the Rover brand to China's Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) for just over $21m.
Fellow Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automobile Corporation bought MG Rover, Britain's last major independent automaker, for £53m after it collapsed last year.
Century-old MG Rover, which produced the Mini and Jaguar, was forced to sack about 6 000 workers after a failed tie-up with SAIC helped push it into bankruptcy.