Hyundai Motor of America say Depo, a Taiwanese maker of cheap imitation replacement lamps, are infringing on the automaker’s patented headlamp designs.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Hyundai say Depo Auto Parts Industrial Co. and their California subsidiary Maxzone infringe 18 design patents by importing and selling lookalike aftermarket replacement headlamps for a list of car models including the Genesis, Elantra, Veloster, Accent, Azera, Tucson, Sonata, and Santa Fe.
It’s not the first time—nor even the second—Depo and Maxzone have been caught out for questionable behaviour; as previously reported in DVN, they’ve been in trouble for price-fixing. Auto insurance companies frequently press workshops to use cheap aftermarket lamps rather than more expensive genuine parts when repairing collision damage, or even insist on it, though the imitation lamps have a long history of inferior fit and function that still carries through to today; a recent study by AAA found aftermarket lamps don’t perform as well as original-equipment ones, even to the degree that the aftermarket lamps don’t comply with all test points in the beam pattern requirements.
