Jaguar Land Rover goes after replica community

Jaguar Land Rover goes after replica community

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ElizabethMagnusson

Original Poster:

5 posts

37 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Hi,
Have you seen the latest regarding Jaguar Land Rover taking a Swedish seniour couple of enthusiasts to court after building a C-type replica?
Facebook is blowing up!

dudleybloke

19,688 posts

185 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Are they selling replicas or just made one for themselves?

jeremyc

23,262 posts

283 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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PistonHeads covered it in their news story here.

PH Story said:
A release was issued alongside the car announcement to confirm that Jaguar Land Rover has won a copyright protection case for the C-Type. It reads: "The Intellectual Property Division of the High Court in Sweden has ruled in Jaguar Land Rover's favour in a case that the OEM brought against a company manufacturing C-type replica vehicles. The court found that the copyright in the external shape of the Jaguar C-type was infringed by a car being built by the defendants, the first of a number that they planned to build and sell."

The statement continues: "In finding that the copyright in the C-type had been infringed by the defendants, the court found in favour of Jaguar Land Rover on all the issues in the case. It ordered the defendants to stop manufacturing C-type copies and awarded Jaguar Land Rover all its legal costs."

ElizabethMagnusson

Original Poster:

5 posts

37 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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They sued a senior couple as well as their inactive company. This company had not been involved in the building of their ONE C-type replica for private use. They had plans to build two more cars and sell through the company, but it never came to that, since Jaguar ordered them to destroy their car and cease all other manufacturing. The ended up winning in court in december. To make this clear - they chose to sue the couple and not only the company so that the couple would have to sell their homes to pay for legal fees. If they only sued the company, they knew they would never get any money because the company is worth nothing.

jeremyc

23,262 posts

283 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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For transparency are you going to declare your personal interest in this case Elizabeth?

ElizabethMagnusson

Original Poster:

5 posts

37 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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I am happy to. I am the daughter of the couple building this C-type replica.
I am the one who has grown up with my father's passion for the brand seeping through our lives in so many ways - holidays spent with classic car communities, classic car meetings on warm summer nights, bringing hot tea to him in his garage on cold winter nights when he hour after hour, night after night, year after year carefully restored his rusty old jags. His interest transferred to me so I bought a Morris Minor to restore with him when I was 17. A car I recently had to sell to help mum and dad with their lawyer fees, even though we all know Moggies are not that valuable.
To build a C-type replica on his own was a dream that could only be possible after he retired and he spent years collecting data and doing research to even begin that project. And he was completely transparent to Jaguar Land Rover about this project. He approached two senior managers at Jaguar classic and he kept in contact with them for almost two years whilst building the car, before from nowhere they sued him for copyright infringement.
All of this you can read in the public documents - verdict, appeal and more.

Gramrugby

543 posts

207 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Absolutely shocking. To reach that point in life and have that thrown at you.

Plus8

241 posts

89 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Can someone explain why many other Kit Cars or Replicas or Recreations are not in breach of copyright laws? I am thinking of Cobras, Other Jaguar C types, Lotus 7 in various guises etc. I would have thought imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I can’t imagine Jaguar winning many admirers for taking this action. Sledgehammer and nut comes to mind.

a8hex

5,829 posts

222 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Plus8 said:
... Other Jaguar C types...
I think that Jaguar threatened Suffolk Sports cars last year. I'm sure that was covered on here.

They had lost court cases in the past
https://www.autonews.com/design/jaguar-land-rover-...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/jaguar...

I guess they tried Sweden to see whether they could find a sympathetic judge having failed to find one here.

I guess the modern business idiom is that if times are hard you stamp on your friends.

Bodo

12,363 posts

265 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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There's not much to find on the internet except what has probably come from JLR press releases.

One such article is here: https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/jaguar-lan...

article said:
The Intellectual Property Division of the High Court in Sweden ruled in JLR’s favour in a case that the OEM brought against a company manufacturing C-type replicas.

The court found that the copyright in the external shape of the Jaguar C-type was infringed by a car being built by the defendants, the first of a number that they planned to build and sell.
In the first paragraph, a company is mentioned, in the second it is defendants (plural). Is that the same?

Anyways, why did JLR chose Sweden, and not Britain? As mentioned, there are existing commercial replica builders in Britain, that sold lots of cars 'bigger damage' already. Low chances because of status quo?


Carsie

925 posts

203 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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a8hex said:
Plus8 said:
... Other Jaguar C types...
I think that Jaguar threatened Suffolk Sports cars last year. I'm sure that was covered on here.

They had lost court cases in the past
https://www.autonews.com/design/jaguar-land-rover-...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/jaguar...

I guess they tried Sweden to see whether they could find a sympathetic judge having failed to find one here.

I guess the modern business idiom is that if times are hard you stamp on your friends.
I'm in agreement a8hex, it does appear rather harsh particularly in the context of how we are told he has tried to engage JLR Classic. What comes to mind however, are the Chinese copies of current models and the litigation against VW for the hill descent control, IP infringement.

Can you have one rule for one and not for others? I await Breadvan72 point of view.

From a practical point of view I would envisage that long before it reached the courts there would be a flurry of letters and requests to desist long before it appeared in front of a judge; it just wouldn't be in JLR's interest, as has manifested itself here, to build negative PR.

I think perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye. Notwithstanding, my commiserations to the O/P father; it must leave a really bitter taste.

Bodo

12,363 posts

265 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Links to the published court documents:
said:
The Swedish court files are public and can be requested from the Swedish courts at https://www.domstol.se/ and are also available in original and auto-translated versions using the following links:

Court ruling
Auto-translated to English: http://bit.ly/38UwvJj
Appeal
Appeal, auto-translated to English: http://bit.ly/2LhwaYY
Supplement to the appeal, auto-translated to English: http://bit.ly/3abYy81
Annexes: http://bit.ly/3iQxbUF
Moderator edit: please don't turn this into a request for donations thread

OtherBusiness

838 posts

141 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Landwind x7 might have been a better case to pursue

a8hex

5,829 posts

222 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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a8hex said:
I think that Jaguar threatened Suffolk Sports cars last year. I'm sure that was covered on here.
OK, here's the thread.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=18...
It was last September, I knew we'd talked about it.
XJ13's comments on the last page might be of some relevance

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Just gone right off Jaguar Land Rover, big time, unless something big comes to light.

irocfan

40,152 posts

189 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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ElizabethMagnusson said:
And he was completely transparent to Jaguar Land Rover about this project. He approached two senior managers at Jaguar classic and he kept in contact with them for almost two years whilst building the car, before from nowhere they sued him for copyright infringement.
this is the bit that has to stick in the craw - to think that you're doing it right and then be shafted seems a little much. That said there are always 3 sides to every story and the kit-car/replica world will, I suspect, be watching this with interest.

As an aside, where does this leave makers of pattern parts etc?

darreni

3,754 posts

269 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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There must have been some sort of cease and desist or other communication prior to this?
Court is normally the last step in a long process.

Mike-tf3n0

571 posts

81 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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I think this is a really sad story given that the real Jaguar product will always be by far the more valuable and desirable product, unlikely to be affected by the small number of replicas which might have been manufactured in Sweden to sell to an entirely different segment of the market. Most people who would have seen one of these replicas would have said 'Wow, guess what I saw today, a JAGUAR C Type', not 'a replica C Type', would that not have all been good publicity for Jaguar? To sue the company seems small minded, to sue the people as well is just vindictive and not likely to make many friends.

lowdrag

12,860 posts

212 months

Thursday 11th February 2021
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May I add a few points here please? This ruling has far-reaching implications not just for Jaguar replicas but any replica. Ferrari won a case on the intellectual properties of the GTO, a case that wasn't much published because it is nor relevant to most of us. But this case is. Caterham took Westfield to court and won some years back but most of us shrugged and carried on. Jaguar gave me as much help as they could earlier this century when I built the 1952 Le Mans C-type, allowing me full access to their archives and giving me copies of photos of the car. Very puzzling. They didn't come after me and have their lawyers send me a "cease and desist" letter which a number of replica makers have now received, including the Magnussen's. They too were given a considerable amount of help by Jaguar in the first instance before doing a volte face and suing them. There are seven Ecurie Ecosse replicas recently announced, but frankly nothing like a real C-type; IRS, Wilwood vented discs all round, wider body, fuel injection - a modern take on an old car. But they too have receives a "cease and desist" letter from Jaguar's lawyers, as have others such as Neville Swales with his modern take on an XJ13 but in coupé form and Realm too with their fibreglass cars that they have been building for many years with no complaints from Jaguar - until now. In the past Jaguar reached out to us who were wanting a lookalike because we didn't have £XX millions to buy a real one.

So what is a "real" Jaguar? The company have been making millions building seven lightweight E-types having announced they would only build six, using up the remaining chassis numbers allocated in 1963. They followed this with nine XKSS cars, using an argument that the chassis numbers had already been allocated before the great fire in February 1957. Now they have built twenty five D-types, saying that in 1955 the chassis sequence ceased at #75. So what about 1954 when only five cars were built Are they building the other 94 cars? Or 1956, when six cars were built, leaving another 93 chassis numbers of that year's sequence?

Now Jaguar have announced a run of eight C-types. Where they get the chassis numbers from puzzles me, because the original sequence finished at XKC 054 in 1953. So why eight? Beats me. Jaguar have said that each and every C-type will be an exact copy of the 1953 lightweight car that won Le Mans in 1953. Like hell they will! Not one of their continuation cars is an identical copy of the original. Take negative earth and electronic rev counters as just two points. Jaguar didn't even build them, subbing out the manufacture of all the parts and acting only as an assembly line. So, will the new C-type run have the original bag tank suspended from the rear bodywork? I'd be very surprised if it does on safety grounds.

But if this decision stands, then wither (sic) the GT40, the Cobra, and other replica makers all over the world? What about all the other replicas already built? Realm have made nigh on 300 C & D-type kits, Lynx built about 60 cars, and the new Lynx are proposing to make another run. From Australia and New Zealand to Sweden, people have been making replica Jaguars for literally generations. I hope the appeal is funded by the classic car community for all of our sakes. Who knows where this might lead.

Elizabeth, I feel strongly for your family since there but for the grace of God go I - and thousands of others. This is the case of using a steamroller to crack a nut, a big bully-boy company attacking the small man. I know Mercedes did the same some years back over a 300 SLR replica, but then Mercedes and Ferrari have always defended to the utmost their intellectual property. Jaguar observed it in the breach, even down to owning several replicas themselves. Here's a photo of one of them they bought as part of the James Hull collection (for which they paid a reputed £40 million) and which is used to give the public a ride. Physician, heal thyself.







Edited by lowdrag on Thursday 11th February 08:54


Edited by lowdrag on Thursday 11th February 09:55

InitialDave

11,841 posts

118 months

Thursday 11th February 2021
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Is the difference that you built yours for your own use, whereas in Sweden they had set up a business to build them, even though the end result was only one car for themselves?

Or is there a difference between the law in Sweden and the UK that affects matters?
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