UK Design rights and artistic works copyright
James White
design rights? Wouldn't jewelry, due to at least the international copyright
conventions, have to fall under copyright? Is there some clear statement of
that somewhere in the UK law? I searched a few sections of the law looking
for the string "jewel" but didn't have any luck.
--
James E. White
Inventor, Marketer, and Author of "Will It Sell?
How to Determine If Your Invention Is Profitably Marketable
(Before Wasting Money on a Patent)" www.willitsell.com
Also: www.booksforinventors.com and www.idearights.com
[Follow sig link for email addr.Replies go to spam bit-bucket]
Tim Jackson
> How does one decide when an item falls under artistic works copyright versus
> design rights? Wouldn't jewelry, due to at least the international copyright
> conventions, have to fall under copyright? Is there some clear statement of
> that somewhere in the UK law? I searched a few sections of the law looking
> for the string "jewel" but didn't have any luck.
Unless someone who knows more than me says otherwise, I think most
original jewellery is likely to be considered as a "work of artistic
craftsmanship". Works of artistic craftsmanship are protected under UK
copyright law as a type of artistic work. See Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, section 4(1)(c).
Jewellery is likely to have design right too, but if it's an artistic
work then the copyright will be more important. There are two back-to-
back sections in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act which effectively
mean that an infringer will infringe either the copyright, or the design
right, but not both.
Section 51(1): "It is not an infringement of any copyright in a design
document or model recording or embodying a design for anything other than
an artistic work or a typeface to make an article to the design or to
copy an article made to the design."
Section 236: "Where copyright subsists in a work which consists of
or includes a design in which design right subsists, it is not an
infringement of design right in the design to do anything which is an
infringement of the copyright in that work."
So, if it's an artistic work, the exclusion in section 51(1) doesn't
apply. Copying will infringe the copyright. And if it infringes the
copyright, section 236 means it doesn't infringe the design right.
Conversely, if there's no infringement of any copyright, there can be
infringement of any design right that might subsist in the design.
--
Tim Jackson
ne...@winterbourne.freeserve.invalid
(Change '.invalid' to '.co.uk' to reply direct)
Absurd patents: visit http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk
James White
> So, if it's an artistic work, the exclusion in section 51(1) doesn't
> apply. Copying will infringe the copyright. And if it infringes the
> copyright, section 236 means it doesn't infringe the design right.
Thank you. That's what I expected had to be in there because that's what
makes sense.