主题：【原创】谈所谓购买民族品牌：感情还是理智 -- 山猫部落

Sorry to type in English. My typing in Chinese is so damn slow that really killing me.

Let’s discuss that from legal point.

This case is not a strong one at all.

First, you need to understand what is "intellectual property" (IP).

In practice, IP usually refer to 3 parts: trademark, patent, and business secret.

Trademark:

No reason to believe any trademark involved in the case.

Patent:

If GM did not file patent for the shape of Matiz, this claim for petant infrigement is totally baseless.

Unfortunately, automobile manufacturers usually do NOT file patent for car shape.

Reasons:

a) those cosmetic shape patents if filed, belong to "appearance" class, the effective life is 2~3 years. By the time it is approved, the protection period is almost gone. Not worth the effort.

b) Most of car you can see has a shell, 4 wheels, and some lights on the outside. Unless some particular cosmetic feature on the shape is really, really, really unique, no one can really file the appearance claim for a whole car. Maybe only some tiny feature, because someone can always find that feature exist so many years ago. For the particular feature alone, most likely it does not worth the effort either.In here, you have to differentiate cosmetic feature and utility tool.

c) Industrial reputation also prevent their own product look like other’s. That is the most deterring component prevent copying.

If you compare the front panel of a 2005 Subraru B9 Tribeca with an Alfa Romeo one, you will notice the amaing similarity. No one heard about any lawsuit for this issue.

First conclusion: I don’t think GM will win on patent of some appearance similarity, even though it could prove the 2 model appearance could be EXACTLY the same.

Now, let’s see if the appearance is business secret.

Once the shape of Matiz in public eye, the manufacturing of the shape could be secret, but the shape itself is no long any secret. I bet the car was already in public before, such as some auto show.

Now the only uncertain part is: if Geally reverse engineered the design of Matiz, or Geally bribed some people inside Martiz to get the design draft out?

If Geally did reverse engineered all by themselves base on public info, case is done, no guilt.

If Geally just bribed some people inside Martiz, then copied the design, Geally might be hold reliable for stealing business secret.

The burn of proof will be then on Geally that: first, it did not PHYSICALLY steal the design directly or in-directly through 3rd party.

Once Geally proves that someone give them for free, Geally is free of guilt, because it is no longer business secret.

Or Geally shows that Martiz did not guard the design at all, for example, Martiz gave 3rd party the design draft without demanding them to safeguard or asking 3rd party to prevent the design from distributing freely, Geally then also proves the design is no longer secret.

From the report I read before, Geally got the design, mostly due to its own reverse engineering. The gray area is on how much portion Geally did the reverse engineering.

This case will not likely make much financial impact. Usually, car manufacturer will change the appearance of one particular model in 3~4 years. The whole purpose of the lawsuit as I can see, is that: GM tries to deface Geally for their design ability, therefore discourage Geally to reverse engineer any more. In US, it is pretty common to use lawsuit as a main tool to defer other party from development, to distract competitor management focus. Just think about Microsoft, see how many cases it initiated and lost, but indeed crashed competitor!