Tuesday 7th September 2004

The new Lotus GT?

Lotus registers new design with the Patent Office

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Lotus Cars has lodged a car design with the Patent Office. It's neither an Elise, nor the new Exige. In fact the closest resemblance is to the canned M250 project. Could it be the much rumoured GT?

What does registering a design mean? According to the Patent Office, a registered design is a monopoly right for the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the:

- lines
- contours
- colours
- shape
- texture
- materials

of the product or its ornamentation.

To qualify for registration, a design must be new, which means that it must not be the same as any design which has already been made available to the public. It must also have individual character which means that the overall impression it produces on an informed user of the design must differ from the overall impression produced on such a user by any design which has already been made available to the public. In assessing individual character, the Design Office takes into account how much freedom the designer had in creating the design.

Registration can last for a maximum of 25 years and is a property that, like any other business commodity, may be bought, sold, or licensed.

Lotus remained unavailable for comment. We'll be following this one closely.

More here.

[Bonce]

Interesting. I wonder how often they post design patents? I mean do they do them every time they have an idea, or do they designs only get patented on models that they intend to take into production?

Also interesting to see that it has a Proton badge, not a Lotus one...

[Bonce]

Duplicate thread here: www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=14&t=122831