[Excaliber]

According to at least one standard of trade mark law, it doen't matter how an item came about. Doesn't matter who first started, invented, shaped or re-shaped it. Doesn't even matter how long a company or an individual may have been using said item. The issue here is "distinctiveness". Is the item CURRENTLY associated by the market (the public) as being distinct to a particular business and/or person.

AC would be the next logical group to even have a chance at a trademark of the Cobra 427 S/C. But like Shelby, they have not vigoriously protected the item in question. Many other companies made use of this potential trademark design for a number of decades, with minimum action by any single party to stop them. It was the multitude of other companies using the image that made it NON-distinctive to anybody!

...don't matter anymore who started it, who gets credit for it or what became of it, to the court. All though, the origination of the 427 S/C body shape is still an interesting debate. AC? Shelby? Ford? Other employees? A collaboration? Ford computers were used to design the suspension, which in turn dictated the need for wider wheel openings. And the side pipes had to go somewhere. The design was for a race car first, if it looked cool after that, well that's OK too.