Jaguar-Land Rover Suing Chinese Automaker Over Counterfeit Evoque

Jaguar-Land Rover took legal action this month by filing a counterfeit lawsuit against Jiangling Motors over their Evoque-replica badged as a Land Wind X7. Since the fake Evoque was released two years ago, JLR has been planning to take legal action against Jiangling, building a case surrounding copyright and unfair competition rights. But this is unlike any other copyright infringement case we’ve seen in the past, and will likely be a landmark historical suit involving international intellectual property rights.

So far it’s been fair game in China for domestic companies to build knock-off products; it’s been done for decades. But this case will likely change the face of the auto industry in China, and perhaps other industries suffering from counterfeiting too. Stealing bits of a car’s design is normal in today’s automotive design studios, but not complete designs. Jiangling Motors pretty much duplicated a hot selling automotive exterior design from an established brand, while only changing minor details for cosmetic appeal. Look at the pictures. Even the Land Wind moniker font-type on the hood is the same as Land Rover.

Replicas won’t perform, feel, or sound like the car their imitating — and they certainly won’t have equal safety components. These fake models sell new for half, or even a quarter the price of the originals. Undercutting the competition with a Chinese domestic product that competes only on face-value is very attractive to emerging Chinese consumers who want to build their economy, but at what cost?

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Via [EINnewsdesk]