By Amy Antenora

The Week in Review offers a snapshot of the most highly read stories of the week as seen on aftermarketNews. To access the complete stories, simply click on the highlighted links. If you missed reading one of our daily news emails, just click on the link that says "News Archives" at the bottom of the page to begin catching up on the latest industry news.

It’s not necessarily earth shattering news to learn that drivers have cut back on the number of miles they’ve logged recently due to high gas prices. However, a recent report from the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) shows just how significant a reduction drivers have made. The FHA estimates that Americans drove 11 billion miles less this past March vs. the same month last year, down 4.3 percent.

To learn more about the ramifications this is having on the aftermarket industry, particularly in the distribution segment, check out the cover story in the June issue of Counterman, which features interviews conducted by Editor Mark Phillips with leading warehouse distributors discussing this very subject.

Following up on a report that dates back to 2005, we learned this week that a Queens County, NY, automotive parts wholesaler who was arrested for trademark counterfeiting, has been convicted. In a public statement issued this week, Queens Country District Attorney Richard Brown identified the defendant as Mordekhay Levy, 43, of Long Island. Levy, the owner of Black and Yellow Auto Parts Inc., located in Long Island City, was convicted of two counts of second-degree trademark counterfeiting. Levy faces up to four years in prison on each count.

While Levy’s conviction is certainly a victory for legitimate aftermarket manufacturers and distributors everywhere, as AMN reader Nick Scheid points out, it is important to remember that not all companies manufacturing and importing products from overseas today are producing poor quality or counterfeit products, as Brown’s comments might imply.

“First I want to be clear that I applaud him [Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown] for his efforts and I agree with the decisions of the legal system and support the government’s efforts to stop all counterfeiting, not only in the automotive industry but for all industries, however his generalizations ‘Such unauthorized products, which often come from offshore, steal jobs from American workers and revenue from American manufacturers.’ is uncalled for and can create an image that all import distributors deal in unethical business practices, and really has very little affect on the American workers since the OEs also import product from overseas suppliers,” Scheid writes.

“I understand that your article is just presenting the facts and comments, but it appears to me that as the editor this would have been a great place to insert a comment "from the editor" that not all companies in this industry segment are crooks and criminals, and spend substantial resources to bring LEGAL quality products to the market place,” he continued.

This was not the only news concerning intellectual property rights to break this week. Yesterday, we learned that Tulsa, Ok., Dayco Products has filed suit against Kingdom Auto Parts, based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition and patent infringement under state and federal law. Dayco’s lawsuit is based on certain aftermarket automatic belt tensioners and pulleys sold by Kingdom in the United States.

While were unable to reach Kingdom Auto Parts for comment prior to going to intially going to "press," we have since heard back from company president Gary Calagoure. In an email to aftermarketNews, Calagoure wrote: “Kingdom Auto Parts has been informed through the trade press of a lawsuit filed by Dayco Products relating to tensioners. Kingdom Auto Parts has not been served with the Complaint, and therefore it is premature to comment on the merits of or defenses to the lawsuit. However, if the matter involves the same belt tensioners that were the subject of correspondence in late 2007, Kingdom Auto Parts doubts the suit has any merit. Dayco’s claims in late-2007 of "trade dress" rights in intrinsically functional belt tensioners are baseless. Any claim of patent infringement by Dayco failed support in these correspondence exchanges, by Dayco’s inability to demonstrate any basis for an infringement claim. It is the policy of Kingdom Auto Parts to vigorously defend its position against tenuous claims asserted by others to thwart honest competition in the automotive parts aftermarket.”

Moving on to more pleasant news, another story that was among our most popular articles of the week was the announcement that Perfection Clutch was named Advance Auto Parts’ Grand Vendor of the Year for 2007. Perfection, which began supplying Advance in 1984, is a supplier of clutch sets, flywheels, clutch hydraulics and ZOOM Performance products to the U.S. and Canadian aftermarket.

And last in our round-up of the top news stories from the week comes news about Delphi. While it continues to work out the fine details of its Chapter 11 case, Delphi Corp. has sold its Power Products Division to Strattec Security Corp. Delphi will sell the division, which makes automobile locks, to Strattec for $7.8 million.

To view all of the news from the past week, simply click here to view our News Archives.