Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is suing Chinese automaker Jiangling Motor Co (江鈴汽車) for allegedly copying the British firm’s Range Rover Evoque, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said — a rare move by a foreign automaker to fight copycats in the world’s largest autos market.
A spokesman for JLR, owned by India’s Tata Motors Ltd, said in brief e-mailed comments to reporters that a court in Beijing’s eastern Chaoyang District “served Jiangling with newly filed actions surrounding copyright and unfair competition.”
He declined to elaborate.
Photo: Reuters
The suit relates to Jiangling’s Landwind X7 sport utility vehicle (SUV) copying the design of the Evoque, JLR’s first China-made model that went on sale last year, said the person with knowledge of the legal proceedings.
A spokesman for Landwind declined to comment.
Despite widespread and often blatant copying, global automakers generally do not take legal action in China, as they feel the odds of winning against local firms are low. Also, a lawsuit can be bad for branding if the Chinese public think a foreign company is bullying domestic competitors.
If JLR wins its case, it could prompt other automakers to also take legal action, said Chen Jihong (陳際紅), a Beijing-based lawyer at Zhong Lun Law Firm (中倫律師事務所), speeding up a shift to stronger enforcement of intellectual property rights.
Landwind unveiled a new version of its X7 SUV in November 2014, drawing criticism for its striking likeness to the Evoque, an imported version of which was already on sale in China.
The two SUVs have a similar shape, with the roof and windows tapering from front to back, and near identical tail lights and character lines on the side paneling. The X7’s front grille is slightly more rounded than the hard edges of the Evoque.
The slight differences between the two cars can be virtually eliminated using widely available kits that allow a Range Rover grille, logo and Land Rover badges to be put on an X7. Kits on Alibaba’s Taobao shopping Web site cost about 128 yuan (US$19.49).
The X7 costs about a third of the price of an Evoque, and is some way behind in technology and performance, Automotive Foresight managing director Yale Zhang (張豫) said.
JLR and Jiangling have agreed that Landwind will not sell the X7 in Brazil, the source said, where it recently appointed an importer. The two automakers are also discussing what Landwind can and can not do in any X7 design update, the person said.
JLR sales fell by a fifth in China in January to March last year — when it launched its China-made Evoque — after rising 36 percent in the same period the previous year. In the same period this year, JLR’s China sales rose 19 percent.
It took Honda Motor Co 12 years to win a case in China against a little-known local automaker — for copying its best-selling CR-V SUV — according to Xinhua news agency reports.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS