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450 Posts
Although I don't advocate it, it turns out that the near duplication of the car is not the illegal part.
A car is not like a piece of art or music, and so is not covered for duplication in that way.
Any car is likely to contain a certain number of patented features, patents belonging either to the car maker or parts suppliers etc., and this has to be watched for.
The big issue with the chery QQ is that GM believes the design prints were obtained illegally - e.g. stolen etc. That is illegal. The reason for all the attention on the fact that QQ and spark doors are interchangeable is not because it demonstrates that one car is a copy of the other. The issue is that the copy is so close, that it can be argued that it would have been impossible to achieve by legal means (reverse engineering) and only possible by possession of the original design data, which GM argues must have been stolen.
This will be difficult to prove, although GM will probably be able to cause delays and huge legal costs to Chery even if they don't win.
I don't think the distinction between duplication by reverse engineering and duplication by illegally acquired design data has been made before on this forum
A car is not like a piece of art or music, and so is not covered for duplication in that way.
Any car is likely to contain a certain number of patented features, patents belonging either to the car maker or parts suppliers etc., and this has to be watched for.
The big issue with the chery QQ is that GM believes the design prints were obtained illegally - e.g. stolen etc. That is illegal. The reason for all the attention on the fact that QQ and spark doors are interchangeable is not because it demonstrates that one car is a copy of the other. The issue is that the copy is so close, that it can be argued that it would have been impossible to achieve by legal means (reverse engineering) and only possible by possession of the original design data, which GM argues must have been stolen.
This will be difficult to prove, although GM will probably be able to cause delays and huge legal costs to Chery even if they don't win.
I don't think the distinction between duplication by reverse engineering and duplication by illegally acquired design data has been made before on this forum