Is style and appearance copyrighted ?

What is the intention of the latest Kia Amanti advertisement? Does it try purposely to mislead people ? From the front, it just looks like a Mercedes Benz car. Computer software MS demands that no one comes close to their trademarks. Can the car style and appearance be copyrighted?

Reply to
aniram
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Actually, designs are patented. No, really. We know that the Aston Martin DB8 was supposed to be a Jaguar, since the patent was filed under the Jaguar name and the car in the patent drawings is obviously the DB8, except for a few small touches.

I think the design patent was what Ferrari used to shut down the makers of Daytona-like body kits for Corvettes, but it may just have been general legal muscle.

Reply to
Stephen H. Westin

Put a heat lamp on any MB wax model and just when it starts to melt .... you have a Lexus design.

Reply to
Miro

it depends, recently chrysler lost a case against GM, Chrysler claimed that the grill on the H2 Hummer resembled the grill of it's Jeep line

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Because of the current email spam attacks my email account is not included, reply via the newsgroups or ask for a valid email address.

Reply to
127.0.0.1

Yes... I think you saw the same advertisement that I saw. Anyway, for the first 2/3 of the advertisement I thought it was for MB.

Sometimes people do not realize that vehicle manufacturers share some design, development or event are partners. But I thought Kia has anything to do with MB. I knew that another South Korean Ssangyong car (SUV) used MB engine.... but not KIA ? am I correct?

Again... the design headlight which looks like "peanut shape" was characteristics of MB in the past 5-10 years ? But I also see it in Hyundai Sonata and I wondered if they were partners. But Hyundai is closer to GM than Daimler Chrysler, correct?

Or, is that "peanut shape" headlight was a design from the famous italian designer ? I also recalled that Hyundai at one time hired an Italian designer for their cars (or was it Porsche?). I could not remember who, though.

Reply to
aniram

Tough call. Remember when Chrysler copied the Mercedes hood ornament theme and sorta front end treatment, simply replacing the Merc logo with the Chrysler 5 point star? Mercedes threatened to sue and Lee Iacocca told them to go ahead, as the legal costs would be less than a marketing campaign claiming the cars were good enough that even Mercedes thought they looked like a Mercedes.

Reply to
L0nD0t.$t0we11

Patented, and this happens all the time, especially when dealing with Asian companies, whose forte seems to be modifying existing designs rather than pure creativity. Usually they use several different models and update the design (Mazda Miata) but sometimes it's blatantly clear where the influences come from (Mazda RX7/Porsche

944, Lexus/Mercedes-Benz S-class, Datsun Z series/Ferrari). Emanuel
Reply to
E Brown
[Asian car companies]

I've always had the impression that the original Datsun Z was inspired by the E-type Jaguar, not by any Ferrari of the time. Both are two-seat hatchbacks with inline

6-cylinder engines.

Geoff

Reply to
Geoff Miller

And the Z was designed by Albrecht Goerz, a German emigrant to the U.S. (remember the BMW 507? Same guy). So it seems strange to characterize it as a Japanese design.

Reply to
Stephen H. Westin

That the car was designed by someone with a Western sense of aesthetics probably had a lot to do with why it caught on so well in the U.S. Most Japanese-designed cars of the time were pretty odd looking, with bizarre proportions and too much tack-on filigree.

The first "Japanese" Japanese car that really caught my fancy was the original Celica. I saw my first one late in the summer of 1971, and while I could tell from a distance that it was a Toyota, I found it a hell of a lot cleaner looking and more attractive than the contemporay Corona (the Camry of its day), Corolla, Carina, etc.

Now *there's* one that's fallen through the cracks of time: when was the last time you even thought about the Toyota Carina? Like the Starlet model of the late '70s, it's all but forgotten today.

Geoff

Reply to
Geoff Miller

Yeah, those bizzare Japanese-designed cars, like my grabber yellow Ford Mustang Boss 302.

;)

Reply to
419-Buster

Huh? Your Boss 302 was designed in Japan?

Riiiiiiiiiight...

Geoff

Reply to
Geoff Miller

A Toyota Carina was available for the Eurpean market until the late 90s.

Reply to
Ignasi Palou-Rivera

I can see that as well. The long hood with induction hump in the middle. Lots of 60s Ferraris had similar designs, and the rear end's abrupt Kamm-style tail always struck me as more Italian and British. I happen to like the Zs, and came damn close to buying a *gorgeous* silver/black 240 on eBay, but the hard truth is I've got too many cars as it is. Emanuel

Reply to
E Brown

I didn't say it was desiged IN Japan. It was actually designed in Mexico - um, California. (Sorry slip of the hand.)

The designer was Japanese, however.

Lookup Larry Shindoa.

Brilliant designer. He also designed the early Corvettes and some Camaros. I think he died around '97.

Reply to
419-Buster

When did Larry Shinoda work for Ford in Japan? I was under the impression that he worked right in Dearborn.

Also the Pinto.

Reply to
Stephen H. Westin

Larry Shinoda was born in LA and grew up in Southern Cal. He was American, not Japanese. A Japanese-American if you want to be anal about it.

Reply to
Ignasi Palou-Rivera

When somebody says something is Japanese-designed, the natural interpretation is that it was designed *in* Japan. After all, we were talking about the Japanese and Western senses of aes- thetics, not people's ethnicity.

Yes, I certainly know shit from Shinoda. (It had to be said.) Shinoda was a Japanese-*American,* born in the U.S., which makes his ancestry immaterial.

The Japanese sense of aesthetics I referred to earlier is a cultural characteristic, not a genetic one. I wonder if you'd be equally quick to describe a car designed by an American native of European ancestry as "German-designed," "Italian- designed," or whatever.

Geoff

Reply to
Geoff Miller

Um, yes. Check out the new Chevy Malibu.

Reply to
419-Buster

BTW, Geoff: Did you used to work at Sun?

Reply to
419-Buster

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