There are no free lunches in life.
All manufacturers including car manufacturers have at some point been subject to the IP, Trade marks, patents and licences of others, so they have either paid a licence fee for its use, or bought out the licence holder or invested vast sums in R&D to develop their own technology and design. Why should there be different ground rules for copycat manufacturers?
Its rather a sad case, but someone was trying to take commercial advantage and make financial gain out of someone else's design and IP and not pay for the privilege. Then apparently without adequate resources and silly enough to challenge a corporation with by comparison deep pockets and most likely inhouse legal team that would specialise in that area.
This is nothing new in other industries of major corporation protecting their interests, one of the most protective companies is Rolex, that up until recently for example used the US Customs to seize unaccompanied Rolex imports that did not come thru it's USA subsidiary.
regards
