Thank everybody for their encouragement. I appreciate efforts to warn me about splashing but here is the reality. You can splash a body, but it is easier to scan a car a car in order to make a copy. This service will run about $200. There is a lot of free legal advice floating around here but I would like to share some that I paid dearly for. First of all, that 10% rule is urban legend. If it is recognizable as a Coke bottle, it is still entitled to trademark protection, even if it has been put in an oven and stretched to four feet tall, or over 400%. A US trademark application has already been applied for covering the design as well as the "Chupacabra" name. Our ads in Kitcar Builder have referred to the Chupacabra for some time and this is part of the trademark process. It is not illegal to make a copy as long as it is not sold for profit. There is some protection in that as it would be more expensive to make molds and one body than it would be to buy a body. I am also glad that any enforcement that I would pursue would be totally different from the CKI situation. With them, Lambo can claim trademark infringement but no monetary damage as nobody could rationally argue that CKI stole customers from Lambo. On the other hand, someone else selling a splashed body to the kitcar industry would be directly stealing a customer, and penalties increased. I will address windows and other issues brought up but I will stop for now before this thing kicks me off and this vanishes.
