So, I just went to Wikipedia to try to understand design patents. They differ from copyright in that to defend them in court, you don't have to prove that the infringing item was copied from your design, right? (Their terms are also much shorter than copyright, but historically both patents and copyright were no longer than at most a couple of decades.)
What's the societal purpose of design patents? I get the purpose of utility patents: tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise not to compete with you for a while. Utility patents are an alternative to trade secrets. But with a design patent, what is society getting in exchange? Giving designers more of an incentive to produce original designs? Does originality suffer without it?
I guess now that copyright is going to cover furniture, the difference is that the term is ridiculously longer (effectively indefinite), but designers also have to prove that there was deliberate copying if they want to sue for infringement?
The benefit is to provide incentive for designers to create original products. Essentially in exchange for bearing the costs and risks of creating something original they are rewarded with a small monopoly.
But extending copyright to ridiculous terms like 70 years past creators' death does little to achieve that goal. Also, as the article points out, extending the terms retroactively is just egregious - you cannot incentivize anyone in the past.
I personally feel that copyright and patents are useful but the terms should be much shorter than they are now (and they have a tendency to become longer with time).
The benefit to me, is that if I create a design, I can then make money from it.
Someone like Amazon can't just come along, copy and paste, and steal my idea and make money from it.
On a more general term, this would surely encourage originality, as there is a direct incentive not to copy
However I can see the other side of this argument, where big corporation buy up a large number of Design patents and use them to institute a tax on a certain item.
Yes, but designers are a minuscule part of society. Laws shouldn't benefit a few at the expense of the many. I guess incentivising originality is the benefit to the many. Are we better served by original furniture designs than by the ability to build our own furniture, however it may be shaped?
How exactly are you going to, you know, design that piece of furniture?
Are you going to go through the many years of schooling and/or decades of practical applied crafting that it takes to make a worthwhile piece of furniture?
So let's say you do that. You make yourself a really great piece, and your friends want to buy it because they didn't want to suffer the 10+ year path to making something worthwhile. You start selling to your friends, but then Walmart comes and makes a near replica at a quarter the price through economies of scale.
You wouldn't be upset? Would you make another piece of furniture? Would anyone else commit to 10+ years of craftsmanship to learn to do so?
No, it really isn't. The person who built that piece of furniture does not deserve an overall control of the design for the person's lifespan + 70 years. There is not a single rational justification for the 100+ year protection, nor should the society protect the few's livelihood when it can benefit everyone once the protection expires.
Switch your scenario the other way around because the reality is, the laws benefit larger companies more than the small indies. A lot of people in US didn't patent their ideas because it cost money to even start the patent process with a lawyer (you have to pay to research prior arts and so on).
Your scenario switch: A company built and patent that same furniture design and you as a small time designer can never sell that design with your own improvements on top of it for practically over 100 years. You cannot improve on a basic copyright unless you have permission. You can end up in a scenario where a massive amount of copyrighted designs are owned by a single company and there is nothing anyone can do for 100+ years.
The original purpose of the copyright (in US) was to push the society forward by promoting the arts and science by protecting the creator's work for a limited period of time, so everyone's motivated to create original stuff. Society suffers from extended protected terms. I'm okay with protecting the person's work for 10-20 years once the work is done, but there is no justification for 100+ years. I don't care if that person goes out of work in 20 years, it's not up to us to protect him for life.
In this age with ~7 billion of people, the right of one single person (or one company) over hundreds of millions of folks is no longer sane.
The real boogeyman in this legislation, i.e. the intended target as described in the article, seems to be China making cheap replicas. I think cheap replicas are probably a good thing. Why wouldn't I want the same thing but cheaper? It's not my job to ensure that local designers stay in business.
Especially not if their design patents (which is what I'm asking about) can be reproduced accidentally.
For example, since clothing is much too necessary, universal, and functional, there are no patents or copyrights on clothing design. I think that's a good thing. The only thing you can do with clothing is trademarks, so as long as a similar-looking garment doesn't say it was made by some other designer, I don't see a problem with copying clothes. Why does furniture have design patents?
Design patents cover similar designs as the original, and there's no need to demonstrate that they were copied. How does punishing "independent invention" (legal term for utility patents) help us with design patents?
however my question is, how do they decide a piece of furniture does a task so much different and better than another that is warrants protection? There is just too much ambiguity in this interpretation. worse the whole is motivated by national protectionism and not trying to protect designers etc.
how about designers adopting to the new technology and selling personal use models that will work with standardized printers. The allure of most furniture is in the craftsmanship and I seriously doubt any 3d printer will be more that the quality of deck furniture and cheap deck furniture. Its like having your own IKEA furniture printer, minus the cushions and such.
whats next, limiting utensils and dinnerware? Chairs are generic, tables are too, your not going to put a designer out of business with your 3d printed chair.
Is there significant legislation that only benefits doctors at the expense of everyone else?
Only legislation that's designed to protect their customers comes to mind right now.
We don't guarantee that effort equals reward anywhere else. You can go tilt against windmills all day, everyday, and find that either because nobody wanted them tilted (hah) or simply through poor execution, you can't make a living at it.
Why does some work deserve a hundred-year monopoly on anything like it, but other work does not?
Why does designing a chair deserve it, but designing a website UI (not the content) not?
And if building a Web UI out of standard parts (ie legs and cushions in the chair metaphor) does deserve protection, when do other people get to use a slider in combination with a dropdown, or whatever my minor innovation was? How long do I deserve to keep the world from using the standard toolbox just because I was first?
The process of invention, and the domain (chairs, programming, UX design) seem obscure and complex to the naive viewer and yet obvious to other practitioners. Unfortunately our system is based on asking people who do not work in the field what elements deserve protection.
If their work is valuable, sure. If we can easily replicate accidentally (remember, design patents do not involve deliberate copying, but copyright does), then their work isn't valuable to us, since we are able to do it on our on accident.
And it appears that in this situation it's the designers pushing for this legislation that are charging a premium.
Because rarely is it really their own work, often just subtle variations on prior designs. And in practice... original designers do not win unless they are also backed by large companies. This is not about individual designers... this is about companies preventing individuals from copying them.
Every legal protection creates a possibility of costly litigation, including a possibility of a litigation that is costly despite the claim being bogus.
A design patent (and a regular patent, too) can be broad enough to cover all the obvious solutions to an obvious problem. Even if it covers things that existed before the plaintiff started working on things described in the design patent, it still costs a lot to defend against it even when the prior art is obvious.
tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise not to compete with you for a while
That reasoning definitely hasa role in the history of patents, but I don't think it plays much of a modern role either in patent holders advocacy/lobby efforts or in proponent economists' reasoning. Instead, we have a more "modern" & market oriented rationale:
We promise not to compete with you for a while, and that should give you the incentive to create.
This works equally well as a rationale for copyrights. Either way, neither of these arguments can justify retroactive granting of IP rights of any kind. The value has already been created.
It is important to know the history, because patent and copyright laws are radically different. In order to understand the differences, we must know where the laws came from. The modern version that people say with "incentive to create" is intended to make people accept legislation for both patents and copyrights as inevitable in order to have innovation. It is a deliberate mind trick to persuade people to accept bad legislation, as this new furniture legislation might be.
It does give more incentive to produce original designs, but it also means that a well thought-out design won't be immediately copied. At least not exactly.
Lets use chairs as an example. One can't really put a utility patent on a chair, as they are commonplace. Most chairs are pretty standard designs (subject to location).
But occasionally, you get a chair that is truly unique. It is both beautiful and functional, nearly artlike. Maybe the designer had to tweak it to get it comfortable. Maybe there are a lot of details, or you've figured out a detail or style that is unique to your production. The patent provides the designer (or company) with the exclusive rights to produce that art-like detailed chair. The competing company theoretically can't produce an exact replica.
Sure, there will be some cheaper places that have the same sort of feel, but like clothing knock-offs, something is generally missing (like quality) and details have been changed.
> it also means that a well thought-out design won't be immediately copied.
And why is this good for society? Like the last paragraph in the article says, I think I'd much rather pay a smaller fee for functionally the same thing?
Not closing all existing creative businesses in developed countries, which would otherwise be completely unprotected against the knock-off industry from countries where manufacturing is extra-cheap.
Nobody said otherwise, but they do provide employment and profit for the highly-skilled.
This development fits the "market of ideas" vision that developed countries have pushed ever since they lost manufacturing superiority to Asian countries. It's an overall attempt at maintaining some sort of upper hand in the commercial sector. Expect copyright and patent laws to be tweaked to cover more and more sectors - already they have been successfully leveraged in the food industry, for example, with "protected origin" programs.
The unfortunate side-effect is that we're edging closer and closer towards thoughtcrime: if the objects of crime are ideas, the agents to police must be minds.
Well, now they will have to be more creative, and the law works both ways, their designs will also be protected. So everyone will have slightly or more different designs, just for the sake of being different.
Laws about making copies for private use differ from EU country to another. The author is only talking about UK, which has strict laws about copying for private use. For instance, it is illegal to copy CDs [1] or entire books [2] for private use in UK.
In Finland, it is legal to copy CDs (even the ones in public libraries!) [3] and entire books [4] for private use. So, I don't think that 3D printing of furniture is affected in Finland. I can happily continue printing my Ikea chairs.
I wonder who's being affected by this law. Very few people buy designer furniture costing thousands of Euros. Furthermore you can have 100,000 songs, 1,000 movies, 100 clothes but only a few chairs. So the Chinese will keep selling cheap furniture with some changes to the design and the EU manufacturers won't make much more.
The Thonet company still sells it (couldn't find the price) and I found it on Alibaba starting from $25. It's so old that's out of the reach of the law but if it wasn't do we really think they're not going to tweak the design and that their EU customers will care and go buying from Thonet instead?
If cheap manufacturers were forced to significantly tweak the design, it would become easier to spot a fake, which means expensive restaurants would more willingly pay the difference to get originals.
If everyone could just slap the same glowing apple on their laptop lid, there would be less incentive for people to get original Apple laptops. Same here.
For a theoretical example look at the situation with Wooton desks and their multiple trim levels. They'll just be more trim levels to work around the copyright.
Obviously the specific example of Wooton desks don't matter because that design is about 150 years old. But it is an example of a general class of problem. In my infinite spare time I enjoy fine carpentry for relaxation, as do a couple other people here, and on my infinite list of things to do is make either a copy of a Wooton or make a Wooton / 43 folders mashup. And running off extra copies doesn't take much extra time, and selling extra copies is an interesting way to pay for your supplies. So this kind of thing could theoretically impact small craftsmen not just Chinese factories.
> They'll just be more trim levels to work around the copyright.
Which is why there are judges and court cases to decide if design patents are infringed, otherwise we'd have machines that simply compare pictures. If your desk is exactly the same as the original bar a few trim levels, a judge will likely find you're infringing.
> So this kind of thing could theoretically impact small craftsmen not just Chinese factories.
That's entirely possible, but not a new phenomenon. Can small craftsmen make and sell statues of Han Solo without infringing Disney's copyright?
Woodworking is smaller than you think. If I take a Chippendale table and replace the (creepy) animal like curvy legs and those (creepy) ball and claw feet with straight square footless legs, that both is, and is not, a minor trim variation on a Chippendale. On one hand its just different actions at my workbench, on the other hand that's an entirely different product that being a Hepplewhite style table.
Both styles are over two hundred years old and being free for all to use has increased the size of the economy not collapsed it. I like the analogy with Wooton from 150 years ago. I should be able to make and sell copies of a Wooton to my hearts desire. I don't think retroactively increasing copyright to 151 years will suddenly retroactively make Wooton invest more in fancy desk designs thus retroactively increasing hiring in his plant in the late 1800s or whatever ridiculous mantra is recited in favor of imaginary property. Likewise in 2170 I should be able to sell Han Solo figurines, although I'm willing to bet if our corrupt system is still even operational then, I still won't be able to do so legally and unfortunately Hollywood will probably still be churning out sequels remakes and reboots. Copyright duration needs something like the Laffer Curve.
> being free for all to use has increased the size of the economy not collapsed it
Considering the sad state of English manufacturing, including furniture, that's a controversial statement. It was undoubtedly a good thing as the English industry was small and growing, much like loose open-source code sharing is a good thing for the still-burgeoning software industry. But that industry is mature now; profits are razor-thin and fundamental innovations are very rare. In such a scenario, commercial viability in high-cost countries usually hinges on design and marketing differentiating you from competitors.
> I don't think retroactively increasing copyright to 151 years will suddenly retroactively make Wooton invest
Yeah, I agree that retroactive application looks stupid with such long terms. Still, the concept overall is consistent with the long-term industrial direction that developed countries are set on. I don't think established interests would be so aggressive on copyright if they could see other realistic alternatives to "let's just leave it all to the Chinese".
I don't think expensive restaurants are really in competition with cheap ones (or Mercedes with VW) but I got your point. Still I believe the effect will be close to nil: expensive restaurants and luxury houses already buy originals. Everybody else care more about the price of what they buy. As long it's not too expensive and it looks good enough it's a sell. My point is that this is going to force Chinese companies to do some design, maybe hiring European designers first then learning to do it themselves. No extra sales for European furnitures and it's still a long shot to 3D printing your own furniture copying a famous one. Think about leather, steel, wood, springs, hinges, etc.
That's what a trademark is for. To keep the knockoff from being confused for the original.
And it does it without making the essential features unusable by others. A trademark would let me slide to unlock, just not slide a little apple icon..
As a person who values good design (and has spent what many would think way too much for a table lamp), I don't see this law as totally absurd: they are basically putting design and works of art (think paintings, pictures, novels) on the same level.
The real problem is that copyright law is flawed, and terms should be reduced, both for designs and for works of art.
In art the only thing that matters is the presentation so there's no societal need for me to copy your art because it serves no function.
But with something like a lamp (or chair) the presentation is also the function.
If you're the first person to put a switch on the lamp as opposed to the cable, simply because you're the first to source a good enough switch to survive in that form factor, do you deserve protection for that cost/benefit tradeoff? For a century?
And doesn't that penalize the switch maker? They do all the work and you're merely the first to slap it on your design so you claim exclusive right to use it, destroying their market for their product.
"Take, for example, the famous Eames walnut and leather armchair with matching ottoman. The officially licensed and copyrighted producer, Vitra, sells them for £6,814 in John Lewis. Yet copies made in Chinese factories sell over the internet and in some stores for as little as £399."
Later:
"With an estimated 54 factories in China making Eames furniture alone, he [David Woods, a copyright laywer] predicts the closure of websites producing bargain basement, mass-produced copies of furniture, 'as after all, this was their business model'."
"This change means that people will be prohibited from using 3D printing and other maker technologies to manufacture such objects, and that for a full century."
Undermining the premise of an argument in the first paragraph with a complete mistruth doesn't bode well for the ground it's built on.
To say that this change will prevent makers from using 3D printing to produce furniture is significantly more absurd than the idea of protecting makers' own designs from unscrupulous exploitation by manufacturers.
It won't stop them from using 3D printing to produce furniture, though. It's absurd for the article to say that it will as the only thing it's intended to prevent is protected designs being ripped off. If someone wants to design their own furniture, they'll still be free to do that, as well as make it freely available if they wish.
If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what keeps you paid, and it's hypocritical to want to deny the same protection to other creative professionals... Especially considering how hard it is to make a living as a furniture designer compared to a software developer.
(That said, I would definitely vote for shortening copyright terms across the board. Something like 50 years from creation date would be fine IMO. These "X years after death" provisions are ridiculous because they only serve to make payouts to descendants that didn't participate in the original creative work.)
> If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what keeps you paid,
I work in a company that does assessments for other companies. I write in-house software to perform those assessments. They give us the data and we give them reports.
There's no "IP" [sic] involved in any of this. There are service contracts and so forth, but my salary would come just as well if our customers had our source code (not that any of them would know what to do with it). Our company provides a service in the form of trained professionals who know how to perform the assessment aided by the software written by people like me who do it. I guess maybe our brand name is important, so perhaps trademarks help us, but that's a completely separate matter from what you are blanket calling "IP". We do not rely on patents (design or not) or copyright to get our pay.
Google, Facebook and Amazon own plenty of copyrights and patents. I don't see them campaigning to eliminate IP law.
Even though the corporations release a lot of open source, they probably prefer the current status quo of explicit licenses placed on code they choose to release, rather than an alternative world of all code being in public domain.
I don't see how it would be to Google's advantage if source code had no IP status at all: an ex-employee could keep a copy of the Google source tree and legally put it on Github.
What's the societal purpose of design patents? I get the purpose of utility patents: tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise not to compete with you for a while. Utility patents are an alternative to trade secrets. But with a design patent, what is society getting in exchange? Giving designers more of an incentive to produce original designs? Does originality suffer without it?
I guess now that copyright is going to cover furniture, the difference is that the term is ridiculously longer (effectively indefinite), but designers also have to prove that there was deliberate copying if they want to sue for infringement?