Major Extension To Furniture Copyright

[bugbear]

Many moons ago I was a design engineer for a major british scientific and medical equipment manufacturer.
For some reason I visited the Jaguar car plant
They were proudly showing me the veneering shop (dashboard etc was walnut ), all very interesting.
What caught my attention was out the back was what I now know to be cyclonic traps we are all familar with here for dust removal.
Back at base I got talking to my boss and one thing lead to another and we used the idea to design a bit of pure water treatment equipment (you might remember condensers from School).
The company patented it and we made lots and it was (and still is) a profitable line.

So I essentially nicked the idea. I chose to say was inspired
Then Dyson came out with his cleaner & my company tried to muscle in on the basis of the patent.
Of course, he quite rightly said the idea was older than me.
But I remember a pleasant afternoon sitting around the table with the bloke, whilst the company lawyers fumed about my "admission".

i have designed quite a lot of innative technical stuff, but doubt I have had a genuine idea in my life.

IIRC applying existing technology to a new Art is patentable.

BugBear

 

[tomatwark]

I suspect what will happen, is that if a designers stuff was being copied on a large scale or was being passed off as an original then they would maybe take action if they could afford it.

But if someone was making something similar as a one off, it would probably not be worth their while in terms of money or hassle to both about it.

 

[lurker]

Many moons ago I was a design engineer for a major british scientific and medical equipment manufacturer.
For some reason I visited the Jaguar car plant
They were proudly showing me the veneering shop (dashboard etc was walnut ), all very interesting.
What caught my attention was out the back was what I now know to be cyclonic traps we are all familar with here for dust removal.
Back at base I got talking to my boss and one thing lead to another and we used the idea to design a bit of pure water treatment equipment (you might remember condensers from School).
The company patented it and we made lots and it was (and still is) a profitable line.

So I essentially nicked the idea. I chose to say was inspired
Then Dyson came out with his cleaner & my company tried to muscle in on the basis of the patent.
Of course, he quite rightly said the idea was older than me.
But I remember a pleasant afternoon sitting around the table with the bloke, whilst the company lawyers fumed about my "admission".

i have designed quite a lot of innative technical stuff, but doubt I have had a genuine idea in my life.

IIRC applying existing technology to a new Art is patentable.

BugBear

Hence the reason we held the patent for pure water treatment and any distillation process.
But you can't then block everyone who comes along using the tech for some other area.

 

[lurker]

I suspect what will happen, is that if a designers stuff was being copied on a large scale or was being passed off as an original then they would maybe take action if they could afford it.

But if someone was making something similar as a one off, it would probably not be worth their while in terms of money or hassle to both about it.

Dyson had exactly this problem one of the big boys used his ideas, in the hope they could bankrupt him when he took them to court.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There has to be an element of copying in all furniture - we are hamstrung by the size and form of the human body. Any chair has to have a leg or legs of some description, a flat bit in the middle at a height that can be sat on and usually something at the back to lean on. Any table has to be reachable when sat at said chair, and so on ... It's impossible to be totally original. (Although on second thoughts the aforementioned constraints sometimes don't seem to apply to some famous designers )