[cycleguy55]

I believe we all understand Carroll Shelby allowed the replica market to develop and flourish over a number of years before he attempted to seize control of the Cobra 'style'. In lay terms, the court basically told him he was too late - had he objected when replicas first started to appear he would most likely have been successful, but waiting all those years precluded his ability to put a stop to it.

The Batmobile, OTOH, has not resulted in a well developed and flourishing replica industry. DC Comics did not 'turn a blind eye', as Ole Shel did, so the court granted them protection on the Batmobile design - and that's the fundamental difference. That also probably explains why Ferrari (and others) will aggressively protect their designs from being copied - they don't want to be 'shut out' the same way Shelby was.