Does anyone know much about Copyright or design patents?

I hardly know anything about it to be honest and really want to know if I'm doing all I can to protect my leatherworking designs n stuff.

Espescially as, well, two things really...

One customer has asked for a design only be sold to them, as well as asking if they can use it in their advertising (they run an archery centre).

And, perhaps more importantly, I've recently noticed someone has changed the style of their bracers to one very similar to mine.

Anyway - rather than bore everyone with the details is there any one person I can bore?!

Friend of mine got a paitent on a pond pump filter so i know a little about it and what i dont know i can prob find out for you k.

he said you need a paitent agent and these differ in cost he paid £1000 to paitent his filter and then you need to keep the paitent up @ £70 per year
he also said it would be very difficult to paitent one single design but you would need expert advice on this. hope this helps K.

Do you have a public website K?

It maybe as easy as putting the designs online and putting a big copyright symbol along with who owns the copyright and the year the design was put together???

You can't get a patent unless you can show an inventive step as part of your work. Plus, you've already displayed them publically, so a patent is out of the question now.

Copyrights are a different matter. It's not quite as simple as putting a copyright symbol on, but it's not much worse than that.
If this group want that symbol for their sole use, get them to consider a trademark. That will protect them as much as it can, but unless they're willing to sue people, then it doesn't do much.

Kate, have a look here http://www.dacs.org.uk/ theres a whole section on copyright and also on textiles and clothing.

hth x

You don't patent designs, you copyright them. Copyright is a horribly complicated subject, but for the likes of you and me i.e. operating on a very small scale, it's not worth getting embroiled with. Just stick a "Design Copyright K" on everything and you've done as much as you can.

Competitors who might rip you off are probably in a similar situation, so a simple notice or subsequent threat might easily work. If big business nicks your designs it's not worth fighting them. I was told by our local Enterprise company that anybody could put TM on their stuff, which might help; but not Registered Trade Mark, which is a lot more hassle.

Incidentally, if someone wants exclusive use of one of your designs, I hope they're paying plenty.

We seem to be in the same line of business - www.journeyman-leather.co.uk , though not really competing. None of our designs are remotely original, so we just concentrate on trying to make stuff better than anyone else

the best way in my opinion to get something legally binding, and that would hold up in court, would be to take a photo (on polariod or using film, as digital is easily altered and doesnt hold well in court) of your work, put it in a sealed envelope, and get it date stamped by the post office and sent to yourself.

keep the envelope and do not open it, therefore, if there is any reason to prove that your design is the origional, the envelope can be opened in court.

this is what ive been taught to do my many graphic designers (even big companys do this, rather than paying copywright fee's) as it is so much cheaper, easier, and just as effective.

Originally Posted by Warren

the best way in my opinion to get something legally binding, and that would hold up in court, would be to take a photo (on polariod or using film, as digital is easily altered and doesnt hold well in court) of your work, put it in a sealed envelope, and get it date stamped by the post office and sent to yourself.

keep the envelope and do not open it, therefore, if there is any reason to prove that your design is the origional, the envelope can be opened in court.

this is what ive been taught to do my many graphic designers (even big companys do this, rather than paying copywright fee's) as it is so much cheaper, easier, and just as effective.

With my paintings I always keep my sketches, photos Ive worked from (my own or ones used with permission) and then email a digital photo (I dont have a film camera anymore) to myself, print off a hard copy from my Yahoo mail to show the date. Even the date the photo is taken shows on the image from the camera - I ran this by an intellectual property lawyer (who kindly gave me free advice on the phone) and he said it is difficult for anything to be completely foolproof - (even the snail mail method - he said there is still the possibility of it being tampered with?), he said what Im doing is a reasonable way of covering myself oh well hope for the best I spose Copyright is yours by default when you create any image or design.

Cool, thanks for all the info guys n gals.

I only asked about Patents as I wasn't completely sure what they refered to - and googling it was making my brain go numb.

I do try to put a copyright notice on any photo's of work and a statement to that effect in flyers, store bumpf etc. So apart from posting or emailing myself stuff I guess I'm already pretty much doing all I can. So that's all cool n groovy.

As for the folks who asked for their own design, they will be putting a copyright thingy (in my name) on anything that features my work so I'm Ok with that.