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Originally Posted by ddcobra
Mr Bruce, maybe am wrong i think to avoid the copywright the body need to be 15% (dimension,light,etc)different to the original.
Thanks,
Don.
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I think the standard that has been applied recently in trade dress infringement
actions had nothing to do with actual dimensions, rather what a lay person
preceives the car to be. The case that comes to mind was a re-body kit
for the Mazda Miata that made the car look like a 1st generation Mustang convertible. The standard being that a lay person would immediately identify
the car as a Mustang despite the fact that the Mazda re-body "Mustang" was
a 3/4 size Mustang replica. Ford sought trade dress infringement against the
sellers of the Mazda re-body, but before the case went to court, Ford and the re-body sellers reached an agreement where Ford licensed the re-body.
Ferrari was successful in shutting down several operations that sold 250 GTO
and Testarossa replicas that differed significantly from the originals in terms
of dimensions but retained the "look" of the originals. Chrysler did the same
thing against several sellers of Viper re-bodies that went on C4 Corvettes,
the re-bodies again were dimensionally different from original Vipers, but they
were able to make convincing arguments that the "looK" did indeed constitute
an infringement.
....Fred