The German company MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG designed the Starliner bus as a new generation and it has a very distinctive style, from the internationally recognisable wrap-around front glass to the lines and wheel cover design. In October, 2006 they took the Zonda China Buses & Coaches Group to court via their Chinese branch, MAN-China. MAN had registered a Chinese design patent in 2005 and has numerous additional international patents for this bus.
This design theft doesn't just hurt MAN outside China but inside as well since they licensed the design to their Chinese partner Neoplan-Youngman Jinhua. A story in Spiegel incudes pictures of both the Starliner and the A9 copy with similar views for comparison. The Starliner sells for €350,000 (US$455,000) while Zonda's A9 copy sells for about a third of that.
This is hardly China's first foray into motor industry copying. China has previously copied the Smart car, the VW Jetta and the Chevy Spark. Toyota lost a design theft case in the Chinese courts in 2005 and GM Daewoo settled their case with Cherry Motors over the Spark clone, the "QQ", outside the court.
The Starliner dispute continues, but it's taken a new twist. Looking to America for more ideas, the Chinese have turned to frivolous lawsuits. The Autoregional blog linked to the Speigel story about the copying back in October, 2005. Unfortunately they also included the line to the effect of, “This example shows how fast und ruthless Chinese are when it comes to copying.�
Although the line has since been removed, it didn't disappear fast enough. Zhongwei is suing the blog owners for libel and they've been ordered to show up in the Jiangsu High People's Court on July 17th, 9am Beijing time. They're also being sued for unfair competition: "by publicising MAN's position that the A9 is a copy, they hurt Zhongwei's business."
But it doesn't end there. the Chinese have taken another tip from the litigious Americans: go after the small fish who can't afford to defend themselves first, get a victory in court and set precedent, then go after the big guys and show previous court decisions in your favour. It's a neat and effective trick.
Who are the big fish? Die Welt, for one. Their story was considerably harsher, directly calling the A9 a copy outside of speaker's quotes, and which clearly has a larger and more influential readership. Der Spiegel would also make a good target.
If the defendants don't show up, the Chinese firm will obviously win by default, but could they make their judgement stick? Could they take their court decision to a German court to get it enforced? That's very unlikely. §328 ZPO covers the recognition of foreign judgements. If the Chinese decision is based in laws which clash against German laws, the decision won't be held up in Germany. Since the comment and the link almost certainly come under German free speech laws, the Chinese are extremely unlikely to prevail.
For your additional reading pleasure, see the Grauniand's story on China's Leninst Corporatism and why at least some opinions are that China can not only not keep up their progress rate, but that they're doomed to failure in the long run as little more than outsourcers.
woof.
