Old Bailey: Scalextric-Hornby have been issued with a series of writs by the governing body of motorsport for incorporating the 2009 F1 concept prior to the FIA having come up with the design in the first place.
In a highly unusual legal move, the French governing body have effectively sued the English model maker for stealing the 2009 F1 style a quarter of a century before the regulations existed to create it.
In producing their plasticized 240-volt recreation of the Grand Prix circus the company then repeated the design habitually every year following until the actual rules were finally drawn up thereby triggering the copyright violation.
Close, but no slot car insist FIA
As the 2009 models started to roll out of the garages in January, the full extent of the second-sight-scaled-down-snatchery was revealed the governing body alleges, with even seasoned onlookers wowed by the similarity between the tiny wings, miniature bodywork, crypto-battery power, toy-town wheels and the flimsy buzzing ring-circuit version beloved of children and middle-aged single men who sweat a lot.
“This is a brazen example of cheap, low-grade forgery that exploits the intellectual property of another party for personal gain and cannot simply be excused by the fact the original didn’t exist for them to copy at the moment they started copying”, Judge Julie of the FIA’s Injunction Function commented.
“Patent infringement is patent infringement whether it is via ESP, ouija boards, voodoo or photocopying in a suburban branch of Snappy Snaps and should be discouraged in all instances,” she huffed and puffed.
A source close to Kent’s most famous train enthusiast wet dream inducer and manufacturer of scaled down car racing simulacra insisted any telekinetic exploitation was limited to a woman in the warehouse who claimed she could read tea-leaves and that the toys probably only looked cheap and plasticky because that was the way the Chinese slave labour had always been forced to make them.
