Another Copycat Case Registered in Chinese Court, this time it's Land Rover vs Jiangling

MANILA: Chinese automobile market has been the source of a headache for many auto brands around the world. Why so? if you may ask, it is because of their copy-paste nature, wherein the Chinese auto firm without any hitch copy the design language of a car and apply the exact philosophy to their car. The victim foreign brand feels helpless as it is very difficult to fight with the native brand in their homeland. Plus, Chinese government rather seems to act lenient on these copying brands and has no stable law enforced against the intellectual property rights.

In the past, many such instances have occurred where the world got to see a Chinese copy of a rather famous car. Take for example Zotye T700, a Chinese replica of Porsche SR8 Macan, and how can we forget the Rolls Royce Phantom twin Geely GE. It's not that these brand didn't fight it over, but it's the low success rate that makes them pessimistic. Here, we’d like to mention one rare case, where a Japanese brand won a case against the copying accused Chinese brand, but this win came with its own set of flaws. Firstly, the firm had to devote a large chunk of its time, to be precise 12 years to win the case and secondly the amount of compensation released by the court was not even 1/4th of the claimed amount. (Just in case you are wondering, we are talking about Honda CR-V and its Chinese replica Huabei RV).

Adding to the list of victims, now it's Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover. The premium off-roading specialist recently filed a case against Chinese automaker Jiangling, for a reason that now we think doesn’t need a re-mention. The car in concerned is Land Rover Evoque and Jiangling Landwind X7 SUV. The former has alleged the later of unfair competition and exact replication.

Getting in detail of the matter, the two share similar attributes like same bold and uplifted hood, headlight design, side grilles, rear bumper design, and similar roof and window tapering. And these striking similarities don't restrict themselves to the exterior and are seen to continue to the interior as well. Further, the features that apart the two from one another can be altered to look alike with the help of Land Rover kit available on-line that consists of Land Rover logo, badges, and grille.

But the two cars differ a lot on engine, performance, quality and on the price front. Where Evoque houses a 2.0L turbocharged mill producing 240 PS and 350 Nm under its hood, Landwind is powered by a Mitsubishi 4G63-T engine, showcasing performance figures that are way too small in front of the car it has taken heavy inspiration from (188 PS and 250 Nm). As for the price, Landwind X7 is available at 1/3rd of the price of Land Rover Evoque.

If Land Rover somehow manages to win this case which we doubt it will, seeing the lope holes in the Chinese law book in regard to intellectual property rights, the company will give a ray of hope to many other victimised foreign brands like BMW, Ford, Cadillac, Volkswagen and other.

That's all for now, on Landrover vs Jiangling Motors, stay tuned with CarBay to get the latest updates on this latest Chinese copycat case.

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