US repair parts legislation: Automotive Services Association weighs in

The repair industry in the States is getting excited about a proposal that would do much the same as our legislation on spares: details of the Automotive Service Association's reservations about it are here. The legislation is the Access to Repair Parts Act, H.R. 3059, which will be considered shortly in the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.

The ASA opposes this legislation because it contains no assurances about the quality and safety of non-OEM parts, and because it would deny businesses the ability to protect their intellectual property. ASA, along with other associations, wrote on 18 November 2009 to state their opposition to the bill. The letter is available on ASA’s legislative Web site, www.TakingTheHill.com. The letter says:

Manufacturers of unlicensed automobile parts have to meet only one basic threshold, to produce a copy that looks similar to an original part. Those who produce such parts incur no costs attributable to original design, research and development and most importantly, product safety testing. Accordingly, the manufacturer of the original product for whom such unlicensed replacement parts are made does not know how these parts will perform and how their use will impact the quality and integrity of the original product. Automotive collision repairers are very concerned about the quality of replacement crash parts. Permitting this intellectual property infringement also exposes consumers to significant safety, performance or durability risks.

All this is familiar to those of us who listened to the arguments on the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act back in 1987-8, or the EU designs legislation, or indeed the block exemption. Surprising, really, that the US has taken so long to have its own debate, although design protection has always been rather weaker there than here. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.