Parliament backs ending car spare part design protection

MEPs have backed a proposal that seeks to end car manufacturers’ current monopoly on the sale of visible spare parts such as bumpers, bonnets and headlights, in a move aimed at bringing down repair prices for consumers.

The secondary market for spare parts should be fully opened up to competition within the next five years, in order to allow independent repairers to get spare parts on the same terms as company garages, according to the report adopted in Parliament on 12 December. 

In most EU member states, visible car parts such as mirrors or car doors are protected by design and copyright laws and can only be sold by the car manufacturers. 

So far, just nine countries, including Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, have opened up the spare parts market, while Greece allows carmakers to protect their designs for a period of five years. 

Carmakers have been resisting EU moves to put an end to their exclusivity, arguing that it would lead to job losses and lower safety standards. But MEPs and repairers say that existing legislation on the type approval of motor vehicles, which requires independently manufactured parts that are a critical part of the safety and environmental systems to be tested to the same standards as the vehicle manufacturer’s own parts (EURACTIV 11/05/07), will guarantee that high safety standards are maintained. 

MEPs hope the introduction in the legislation of a five-year transitional period before full liberalisation will help convince member states that have been blocking the law in the Council, including Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania. They will also allow manufacturers to retain design protection for spare parts purchased for “decorative reasons”. 

Jacopo Moccia, general director of the European Council for Motor Trades and Repairs (CECRA), which represents motor trade and repair businesses, welcomed the move towards a single set of rules. He told EURACTIV that it would also put an end to a confusing situation whereby, for example, trucks carrying spare parts manufactured by suppliers other than the original car manufacturer from Spain to the UK could be stopped and prosecuted in France for the infringement of design protection. 

ECAR, a campaign group representing consumer organisations, vehicle parts producers, distributors and independent repairers, added that the vote strikes “a fair balance between intellectual property protection, the need for competition […] and consumer protection”, although its chairman Louis Shakinovsky stressed there was “no good reason” for a five-year transition period. 

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