Normally, the Ferrari brand is not often mentioned when it comes to filing lawsuits for copyright infringement of other brands. On the other hand, this brand is an extremely strict car company in selecting customers as well as “protecting” the image of the cars that Ferrari sells. In fact, if the brand finds that the behavior or things a customer does with a Ferrari car is inappropriate, the brand will even send a letter declaring a cessation of sales to that customer.
As a traditional brand, the Italian car company has been doing many different ways to protect the image of Ferrari. In 2016, Mansory launched the “4XX Siracusa” tuning package for the Ferrari 488 GTB with many design details inspired by the Ferrari FXX-K racing car. The Ferrari brand feels that the design of the brand’s top LaFerrari model was blatantly copied by Mansory. The Ferrari brand has sued Mansory for “design plagiarism” and so far, the car company has officially won the lawsuit.
Ferrari filed a lawsuit in court in the Federal Republic of Germany because Mansory’s headquarters are located in this country. The main issues that Ferrari raised in the tuning package are the hood design with V-shaped air vents and the front bumper design of the tuning package. The air vent on the front hood on the Ferrari 488 GTB customized by Mansory is designed and painted black to resemble the original details on the Ferrari LaFerrari FXX-K racing car.
According to Ferrari, these design details are unique identifying details of the LaFerrari FXX-K, helping to distinguish the FXX-K from other car models. With Mansory “plagiarizing” this design to equip a regular supercar like the 488 GTB, Ferrari feels that this somehow makes the multi-million dollar FXX-K model less special. . This has made the Ferrari brand decide to sue Mansory to protect the image of its classy racing car.
Initially, the Court in the Federal Republic of Germany was unable to reach a verdict and they requested the intervention of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) based in Luxembourg. According to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union CJEU, a component can be considered an individual part and entitled to design protection, even if this design has not been registered for copyright protection. intellectual property. If a part of an object is easily visible and clearly identified by specific lines, contours, colors, shapes or textures, it will be protected without the need for registration.
Currently, there is only published information about Ferrari winning this lawsuit, but the results of the lawsuit have not yet been announced. It is unclear how much Mansory has to compensate Ferrari for damages or whether it will lead to other agreements such as agreeing to stop making the 4XX Siracusa Bodykit. This lawsuit seems to have partly set a precedent for designs that, although not registered for intellectual property rights, are clearly product identification designs of specific brands.
The trend of using the designs of top Hypercar models to create body kits for supercar models is no longer strange to many tuning companies in the world. On the other hand, this is also a strong growing trend when it can give regular supercar models an appearance somewhat similar to top Hypercars.
However, after Ferrari’s lawsuit against Mansory, it may be more difficult for these packages to continue to be designed and produced, especially upgrade packages for Ferrari cars with similar designs. consistent with other car models under the brand. Hopefully this will not happen again in the future because the Mansory brand is often known for its customization packages with bold, even somewhat cumbersome designs compared to many customization packages from other brands.