Safir trying to trademark GT40 shape???
- Thread starter pavulon
- Start date
Safir in my opinion have no chance.
The statute of limitations coupled with "the reason" for such a long delay in desiring to copyright something which is now public domane. The reason could only be that they saw no value it it previously and about 40 years later wanted to "cash in" on developement of it by many others.
Would not wash.
John
The statute of limitations coupled with "the reason" for such a long delay in desiring to copyright something which is now public domane. The reason could only be that they saw no value it it previously and about 40 years later wanted to "cash in" on developement of it by many others.
Would not wash.
John
These are the guys that wanted $ 40 million (?) from Ford
to use the GT40 name on the new car, and Ford declined.
IMHO Ford will pay $ 40 million in lawyers fees
before they give these guys a dime in royalties.
MikeD
to use the GT40 name on the new car, and Ford declined.
IMHO Ford will pay $ 40 million in lawyers fees
before they give these guys a dime in royalties.
MikeD
This ought to be coming to a head soon. Anyone know where it stands?
Chris
Chris
Ron Earp
Admin
I was thinking about this the other day but I have not heard if there is a definitive ruling. Bob Wood from Safir is on the forum but I do not know if he has talked about this or not. Might not hurt to email or PM him about it if interested.
Presumably if the suit is successful Safir will be in a position to collect fees from companies and individuals that produce a car with a "GT40 Shape"? However, that may not be their intention since the suit revolved around the Ford GT name as well as the shape of that car.
Ron
Presumably if the suit is successful Safir will be in a position to collect fees from companies and individuals that produce a car with a "GT40 Shape"? However, that may not be their intention since the suit revolved around the Ford GT name as well as the shape of that car.
Ron
Shelby may have lost the war, but he won some battles. Rumor has it FFR was going to release a GT40 replica, but in exchange for not being included in the list of defendants, they agreed not to do a 40 and instead developed their new GTM.
Safir may not have the $$ that Ferrari has, but look at what Ferrari has done with anyone trying to replicate one of their creations--there are none being created at this time, to my knowledge (although I suppose some might be waiting in the shadows).
Methinks perhaps all this "intellectual property" hogwash has gone too far--if someone can trademark a "shape", how long is it before someone can "copyright" a particular musical key or group of chords. That would have interesting effects on the music industry.
Reminds me of something I read in Popular Mechanics years ago--somebody had developed a set of ergonomic handles for the wheelbarrow. They went to the patent office for a patent on the handles and the patent office gave them a patent on the wheelbarrow--seems nobody had a patent on the wheelbarrow. It took a while for the patent office to fix that screw-up, but it illustrates what COULD happen if things take a nasty turn.
If that happens, I'm filing a patent application for the wheel. Read 'em and weep!!!
Doug
charlie c
Lifetime Supporter
Heh.... in college, in the early eighties, a friend and I invented a computer program that could stochastically "compose" music, running all night, and save the results to disk in a format that we could decode and print as sheet music.
Our scheme was to use as much cpu time as possible to generate every possible combination of twelve tones, print out reams of score per day, and start shipping off file boxes for copyright in secret...
... we would reveal our scheme with a massive injunction against ALL composers and musicians worldwide, and after our successful triumph in the world courts, we would establish the World Ministry of Music (with me as Minister of Music, natch...), where applicants could license any piece of music they wished....
.... as long as they paid us.
... perhaps, if we had implemented this scheme, today we would be in a position to deny Britney Spears a music license!
Our scheme was to use as much cpu time as possible to generate every possible combination of twelve tones, print out reams of score per day, and start shipping off file boxes for copyright in secret...
... we would reveal our scheme with a massive injunction against ALL composers and musicians worldwide, and after our successful triumph in the world courts, we would establish the World Ministry of Music (with me as Minister of Music, natch...), where applicants could license any piece of music they wished....
.... as long as they paid us.
... perhaps, if we had implemented this scheme, today we would be in a position to deny Britney Spears a music license!
Oh oh, here we go again. This story about $40 million is an urban myth and complete BS. It was discussed in detail by Bob Wood of Safir here on GT40s.com about a year ago. Please do a search for that thread.
Ron Earp
Admin
This thead is from March of 2005 and Mike's comment is from that time period. The thread that covers the Ford/Safir deal that Bob wrote about it here:
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/all-gt40/18655-who-owns-rights-gt40-body.html?highlight=Bob+Wood
But that thread doesn't address the intentions of trademarking of the GT40 shape nor where that stands today in the legal system.
Ron
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/all-gt40/18655-who-owns-rights-gt40-body.html?highlight=Bob+Wood
But that thread doesn't address the intentions of trademarking of the GT40 shape nor where that stands today in the legal system.
Ron
Safir may not have the $$ that Ferrari has, but look at what Ferrari has done with anyone trying to replicate one of their creations--there are none being created at this time, to my knowledge (although I suppose some might be waiting in the shadows).
I am sure I have seen an RCR very nice yellow Ferrari car. Or maybe it is just ferrari-esque.
Cheers
Jack
I am sure I have seen an RCR very nice yellow Ferrari car. Or maybe it is just ferrari-esque.
Cheers
Jack
NO F-cars here just RCR's....boomsmile
Perhaps we can refine the issue a little more here and understand things a little better. For starters, it is now clear that Safir has a complete and uncontested trademark of "GT40" in the trademark categories relevant to the automotive industry. If you want to do a little investigating on your own you can do what any intellectual property attorney does and go to the United State Patent and Trademark Office website (United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page) and do a basic trademark search for "GT40" and you can see all the detail.
Trademarking a name (plain text or stylized) doesn't, by itself, generally provide any protection over intellectual property which consists of more than just the name. Said another way, the thing - a replica GT40 for example - is not protected pursuant to trademark law, rather, just the name applied to the thing. The people who get in trouble with Ferrari, for example, are more culpable in the eyes of the civil law courts because they tend to utilize "Ferrari" (a trademarked and protected name) as a descriptor to the thing they are selling.
Protecting the thing (not just the name applied to the thing) is much more complicated and usually falls within the area of patent law. It is very difficult by the simple nature of patent law to patent a shape such as the lines of a car body. Patent law lends itself well to protections based upon technical descriptions and functional descriptions, not merely a physical form. So, net, it is very difficult for automotive companies to protect an overall car shape and generally have limited success in so doing. This is one reason why Tornado, CAV, RCR can sell a car that is identical to the original GT40 in form and not get in trouble with Safir (who hold the "GT40" trademark).
Hope this helps a little.
Trademarking a name (plain text or stylized) doesn't, by itself, generally provide any protection over intellectual property which consists of more than just the name. Said another way, the thing - a replica GT40 for example - is not protected pursuant to trademark law, rather, just the name applied to the thing. The people who get in trouble with Ferrari, for example, are more culpable in the eyes of the civil law courts because they tend to utilize "Ferrari" (a trademarked and protected name) as a descriptor to the thing they are selling.
Protecting the thing (not just the name applied to the thing) is much more complicated and usually falls within the area of patent law. It is very difficult by the simple nature of patent law to patent a shape such as the lines of a car body. Patent law lends itself well to protections based upon technical descriptions and functional descriptions, not merely a physical form. So, net, it is very difficult for automotive companies to protect an overall car shape and generally have limited success in so doing. This is one reason why Tornado, CAV, RCR can sell a car that is identical to the original GT40 in form and not get in trouble with Safir (who hold the "GT40" trademark).
Hope this helps a little.
I did hear some time ago that Safir only had the rights to "GT40" in the USA ...not Worldwide...
I wonder if this is still true.
I wonder if this is still true.
Steve Briscoe
Lifetime Supporter
In my opinion, claiming the rights to a product shape comes down to a decision about what's right and wrong. Therefore, the right thing to do is listen to the original owner or manufacturer to determine if they believe ownership entails the shape. Every single person who is interested in the GT40 shape needs to look at it from a standpoint of what would their position be if they had created the shape. Sure, there will be all kinds of arguments put forth by attorneys as to what their interpretation of the law dictates, but those guys get paid for issuing opinions. I don't and neither do most of you here on the forum. Having spent enough money on legal fees over my career to buy several original 40s, I would say our good friends in the legal field will argue either side of this issue, depending on how much it pays. Therefore, look at this issue from a position of what's right and wrong as if though you were the creator of the original shape, you owned the license and you would have income, or no income, depending on how someone interpreted your ownership.
There's enough activity in the market to see from behavior, not words, that shapes are strategic and proprietary. Chevrolet and Ford appear to tightly control Dynacorn's replicas. Chevrolet is particularly sensitive to the shape of the '67 Corvette and to my knowledge, has not authorized a replica shape. I can understand why. The first car I bought with my own money was a '67 big block that had been ridden hard and put away wet. Fixed it with original GM parts and sold it to pay my next year of college. Ferrari has fought for years to ward off encroachment by fighting anything replica at the lowest possible level. That's where the manufacturer\owner needs to start. I recently made a mistake and was directing people to a replica bell housing for the 40 that wouldn't drag beneath the car. I don't own the replica bell housing model; I was just trying to be helpful and friendly. After realizing that the replica was possibly taking one of our forum member's business away (Bob Wood), I quickly began directing all to him. It's his. It's the difference between right and wrong and it really doesn't matter to me how many years have passed since this type of bell housing was actively marketed and sold.
The attention paid to replicas and cars from a long time ago has given rise to new and far better products. Just look at some of the new cars coming out of small private manufacturers. It's amazing what you can get for a mere fraction of what it would cost us to design and reproduce something on our own. To them, I send my greatest encouragement while at the same time look to see how the decisions between right and wrong are transpiring. Just my two cents-
Happy Thanksgiving!
Steve
There's enough activity in the market to see from behavior, not words, that shapes are strategic and proprietary. Chevrolet and Ford appear to tightly control Dynacorn's replicas. Chevrolet is particularly sensitive to the shape of the '67 Corvette and to my knowledge, has not authorized a replica shape. I can understand why. The first car I bought with my own money was a '67 big block that had been ridden hard and put away wet. Fixed it with original GM parts and sold it to pay my next year of college. Ferrari has fought for years to ward off encroachment by fighting anything replica at the lowest possible level. That's where the manufacturer\owner needs to start. I recently made a mistake and was directing people to a replica bell housing for the 40 that wouldn't drag beneath the car. I don't own the replica bell housing model; I was just trying to be helpful and friendly. After realizing that the replica was possibly taking one of our forum member's business away (Bob Wood), I quickly began directing all to him. It's his. It's the difference between right and wrong and it really doesn't matter to me how many years have passed since this type of bell housing was actively marketed and sold.
The attention paid to replicas and cars from a long time ago has given rise to new and far better products. Just look at some of the new cars coming out of small private manufacturers. It's amazing what you can get for a mere fraction of what it would cost us to design and reproduce something on our own. To them, I send my greatest encouragement while at the same time look to see how the decisions between right and wrong are transpiring. Just my two cents-
Happy Thanksgiving!
Steve
