Prague gas station accused of plagiarism, forced to post embarrassing signs

A court has issued a preliminary injunction against a Prague gas
station for plagiarism involving copying the architectural design of
a famous gas station in Slovakia.

Recently a station called Stopka Libeň in Prague 8 was completed, using many of the same design features. Atelier SAD claims this is a violation copyrighted work. Both station have a concrete shelter over the pumps. The shelters have thin pillars ending in a cone supporting interconnected flat round disks that have been compared to mushrooms or flying saucers. A thin line of colored lights runs around the rim of the disks. The top halves of the pillars are lit from underneath.

The Prague station, owned by the firm Tived, has been forced to cover the conical tops of the pillar necks, which had embossed pump numbers. The Slovak station has lit LED numbers in the same positions and same typeface. The operators of Stopka Libeň have also had to post signs on each saying that the station is not the work of the architects Adam Jirkal and Jaroslav Koza, who made the Slovak station.

The studio hired law
firm Havel & Partners to examine the issue. The law firm got
expert opinions from academics and professionals which backed the
ideas that one design is a copy of the other.

The law firm them
asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction. The two parties
have now met, and are seeking a solution. Atelier SAD has 30 days
from when to injunction was issued to file a formal suit, in no
agreement is reached.

An optimal solution
would be for the Libeň station to be modified so it no longer
resembles the Slovak one. Complete demolition is unlikely.

Slovak company GAS
says that the design is intended to be similar to a company logo, and
they plan to use it across Slovakia for their network. They also
don’t discount that they will expand into the Czech Republic. Other
stations using a similar design could cause brand confusion.