Nissan getting sued by former partner
It appears that Nissan is in a bit of a bind with a former racing partner suing the manufacturer because of the Nissan BladeGlider concept’s basic shape.
Don Panoz – racing and pharmaceuticals mogul – is suing the Japanese car maker as well as one of its employees, Ben Bowlby, the goal being to obtain a cease-and-desist order to prevent the company for displaying, seeling and racing cars with the basic wedge-like shape of the BladeGlider.
According to Panoz’s claims, the BladeGlider which was revealed at last month’s Tokyo motor show, is a copy of his DeltaWing race car which debuted at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 2012, and he says that Nissan concept infringes upon his intellectual property.
Some people say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity because the lawsuit is drawing attention to the Nissan ZEOD RC, the 300km/h-plus hybrid race car meant to compete in the 2014 Le Mans 24-hour endurance race.
The history between the two parties started when Nissan helped to finance and supply an engine for the Delta Wing race car. Bowlby was on the Panoz design team for the project and then Nissan hired him as its director of ‘motorsport innovation’, helping Nissan develop the BladeGlider concept.
Panoz’s argument is that he spent tens of millions of dollars to create the shape of the DeltaWing – triangular shape with a wider wheel track at the rear than at the front – and so he has a claim to the design as his own intellectual property. In case Nissan follows up on the promise to commercialize the BladeGlider concept, Panoz is concerned that the design will enter the public domain, this robbing him of the opportunity to license it to other car makers.
As for Bowlby, he is targeted by Panoz for allegedly misappropriating confidential information learned during the development process of the DeltaWing.
Nissan obviously is disputing Panoz’s case, saying that the inspiration for the BladeGlider came from the shape of gliders, we’ll see what happens.
