BMW wins legal battle against China’s classic Mini clone

German car giant BMW – owner of the modern Mini marque since 1994 – has slammed the brakes on a Chinese electric-car start-up attempting to sell a copycat of the original Mini of 1959.

Chinese company Beijing Estech Technology Co. in July 2022 filed for patents for the classic Mini – with only mild visual changes, and electric rather than petrol power.

After expressing an intention to take legal action against last year, BMW has now succeeded in its request to Chinese authorities to knock back the copycat car.

As reported on social media platform Twitter by Drive European correspondent Greg Kable, a decision announced by Chinese intellectual property officials late last month declared "all patent rights applied for" by the Beijing company for the Mini copycat "invalid".

It is unclear how well progressed Beijing Estech Technology Co. was in launching a showroom-ready version of its classic Mini clone.

The Mini copycat is the latest in a long line of iconic or popular cars cloned by Chinese companies.

The Daewoo Matiz – a South Korean subsidiary of US car giant General Motors, which provided the basis of many small Holdens in the 2000s – was copied by Chinese car maker Chery (which is returning to Australia later this month) for its QQ city car in 2005.

Meanwhile, the Range Rover Evoque luxury small SUV spawned a counterfeit from Chinese firm Jiangling Motors, the Landwind X7 launched in 2015, four years after the original car was unveiled.

Both Chinese companies were sued by the makers of the cars they copied – with Chery and General Motors settling out of court, and Land Rover winning the case against Jiangling Motors in 2019, forcing the Chinese car maker to make styling changes to its car.