I am a registered patent agent, and I studied a lot of copyright law in Law school. This Japanese company could have patented any actual technology, and sued for infringement. It is not expensive to file a patent, and a copyright exists just by making the product. They should and can sue for infringement not stop making products. If they spend big bucks on R and D they should and probably to protect their IP.

 

they're stupid for not patenting their stuff, now it comes back to bite them in the ***

 

As an American Mechanical Engineer I am insulted that you think that no good products will exist if the Japanese don't make them. Japan took the car, A US designed product, and made it cheaper because they did not have to do the R and D. To continue this with your logic when the US car companies go out of business there will no longer be good cars, because Japan won't have any good technology to steel.
US race teams and custom shops produce quality parts for racing even when it is not profitable. Instead of passing R and D cost to customers they solicit sponsorship to cover the cost.

 

Was a wheel a US designed product as well, Mr. American Mechanical Engineer? Japan didn't have to do R&D? Where are you coming up with this stuff? A car as you know it today is a combination of R&D from all over the world, but my main point is - what do they teach in colleges these days....

 

Are you serious? so...patent how many slits you can have on your hood?
Patent how many curves on the rear diffuser? Patent how many millimeters over OEM fenders?

Some of the Replicas are made in the exact same factories as the "real" item.

As an owner of the AUTHENTIC voltex / C-west parts, I'm truly impressed with my friend's replica!

Salty that he spent 1/4 of what I paid? yup.... but he was the smarter one.

 

You are patenting the design as whole not individual components, it prevents someone from copying your product EXACTLY the same. If you were pantenting exact things no one could build a car that had 4 wheels and a steering wheel. I don't think you understand how the process works.

I am all for quality and originality but everyone has their limit. If i have to feed my family and pay for everything else that comes with life but I save a little on the side to mod my car to my enjoyment am i going to spend $7,000 on a set of Volks or 2,000 on a set of Rotas? If i had the means i would surely buy the Volks but at the end of the day everyone has different bank accounts and budgets.

People will continue to buy original parts (me included, for the most part) and people will continue to buy knock offs but at the end of the day be happy with what you have and don't look down on people who cannot afford the same and blame the ills of the world on them because they are just trying to make it through life the same as you are.

 

I wasn't bragging about engineering school. IT is mostly Math and Physics based classes. Many of Americas most innovative people don't even go to college, and I know that the Japanese Have contributed a lot to automobile technology, but to suggest that not having Japanese products will prevent good products from being made is insulting to creative and intelligent Americans.
You better start liking American, because with our country's trade deficit inflation will continue, and almost none of us will be able to afford anything but domestic products.

 

I would buy that if the line of this thread and even the article itself were not implying the exact opposite. I don't think you talk about "putting companies out of business" and "death" and other such key words in that the article strung together unless you wanted to paint a certain picture and get a certain reaction. Thats exactly why I spun it and went towards you with a "personal example" .

Oh yes, they didnt log into EvoM and type this post or write the original article and I never implied that .

 

People have been presenting good points. Some observations/questions:

1. Why hasn’t Seibon been sued for copyright infringement? Why let the bad guys continue to stay imbedded in the CF hood market?
2. Voltex should do a better job marketing their R&D work and explain why their MSRPs are higher than their competitors. This is a marketing failure on their part.

 

I meet this with a direct quote from the original article:

"Death" of a product... is true. The product is no longer available, it is no longer produced. It is dead and was killed by both Voltex and Seibon. Companies will go out of business without a desire and drive to R&D innovative and original products. It will take some time, this is true and the article does sound drastic in comparison. I agree with you on that one without a doubt I feel that the article does create a reaction and emotions to stir people up which is a good thing.


If you didn't mean to imply that then I misunderstood what you had written in your post. It happens and I apologize for that.

 

You know what amazes me - even with the huge response to this article, a thread was recently made asking the admin of EVOM why they allow companies to sell knock-off (replica) parts on here and the response was along the lines of "we don't know of any company or vendor on EVOM who sells such parts. . ."

The thread was almost immediately closed with no further discussion.

Talk about burying your head in the sand . . .

What will it take to stop this? Will the owner of Voltex have to come on here and publicly ask the EVOM admin to not allow sales of any copies of Voltex parts? Wait - that won't work because Voltex isn't a paid EVOM vendor. . .

How about Do Luck? Varis? There are tons of copies of their front lips out there. If companies like these stop wasting their time making parts that are subsequently copied by the likes of Seibon, so you REALLY think Seibon is going to come up with their own proprietary design?? NO.

Putting a Seibon knock-off POS on your car to make it look "cool" is exactly the same as gluing a hood scoop on top of your hood to make it look like you have "ram air" or putting a huge wing on your Cavalier because race cars have big wings so it HAS to be good!!

Trust me, I'm guilty of supporting the eBay knock off parts machine. I used to have an eBay 02 housing (now a Works), used to have an eBay IC (got a real AMS, now an ARC), bought an eBay "ARC style" airbox just to use for testing purposes. I'm not perfect and I don't expect anyone else to be. My eyes have been opened and hopefully I will be less likely to support these knock-off companies in the future.

It's not JUST us as consumers who buy the products, and the vendors who sell the products either. The magazines also play a large roll. Here's a little story you may like :

I had always run the stock airbox on my '06 RS as that's what my tuner recommended. The car made great power so I saw no reason to change. Last summer I added an AMS mini-radiator kit to save some weight off the front of my car. With that rad, the filler neck sits right where the stock air scoope goes, so I couldn't run the stock air scoop. I had a race that weekend and needed a quick solution. I spent around 10 hours of labor fabricating a new cold air/ram air scoop that attached to the stock airbox. Because I don't have a full machine shop or fabrication shop, I had to make due with readily available parts, from Home Depot. I used a 4"x8" HVAC vent as the scoop. I had to drill out all the rivets holding it together, cut it up to fit the contour of the bumper perfectly, cut tabs to rivet it to the bumper, then re-rivet the whole thing back together. From that I used 2 flex joints to clear the header, and then expandable 4" dryer ducting to carry the air to the airbox. There, I had to custom fab out of a sheet of aluminum stock an adaptor to allow the round dryer duct to mate up to the odd shaped inlet on the stock airbox. After hours of cutting and fitting and riveting I got it all together, made it to the race, and kicked a$$. The thing held up the rest of the year, never causing a problem, and channelling a ton of cold air to the airbox when the car was moving.

Well, someone from Turbo magazine saw it at the DSM/EVO shootout, and in their editorial the following month (same issue that a pic of my car appeared in an article about the DSM/EVO shootout) they proceeded to say how they were sick of seeing otherwise feature worthy cars with Home Depot intakes (HVAC meets MIVEC) and these cars made them turn away and not even be interested in it.

You know what, sad thing is - if instead of my custom hand-built functional intake I'd had an eBay knock off of the ARC airbox - they probably would have loved my car . . .

EVOlutionary

 

i totally agree with you

 

It is a shame. Some people in the states don't understand the impact and the difference between authentic and JDM. It is simply out of a lack of education on our part. I myself strive to educate people everyday why it is better to buy the authentic than it is the replica. You can apply this to everyday life. There is a reason why Rolex is so expensive. There is more to it than simply the gold and diamond trim (of course those materials in themselves are a big chunk of change haha). It is also the testing and research that goes into either prolonging the life of the watch, or simply making it lighter in order for to be less of a burden, or larger to make it more of an eye catcher. After all of the time and money has been invested to producing this product, other companies come along and replicate it and sell it for 1/10 of the price. It is degrading to the authentic innovators. I know Rolex isn't the best example but it is one that you could apply outside of JDM tuning. JDM tuning is the exact same but amplified to a higher degree of seriousness. It is simply tragic what these replicas are doing to the industry. GREAT POST!

 

Here's something to consider, how do you patent a sign? Can Volk patent the TE37 design? Does the patent only apply to exact copies or does it apply to wheels that are clearly inspired by the TE37 but still have some differences? What if the weight is different? What if the metal used is different? Unfortunately for companies like Voltex, C-West, Spoon, etc., patenting their products isn't easy as it's not something as distinctive as the Coke formula or a new vaccine/drug where this is a strict definition of the product.

 

You bring up a wonderful point. I myself of questioned as to whether or not these JDM innovators and pioneers will be able to patent their products but in the end it costs money that they don't have. The majority of this money will be spent on attorneys in order to consider all lurking variables similar to the ones you just mentioned. Examples: different materials, different weights, different color. In the end, if it is possible then I would love for someone to inform them of the methods that they need to partake in, in order to ensure that these kinds of knock offs cease.