“A tussle over the iPhone trademark, owned by network equipment manufacturer Cisco Systems, had been expected over rights to use Cisco’s iPhone name, shortly after Apple boss Steve Jobs launched the Apple iPhone last Wednesday 10th January 2007. After no agreement was reached, Cisco sued Apple in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking injunctions to prevent Apple using the name.”

This is a lesson that we designers need to learn from - how to protect our design ideas and rights to protect ourselves.

More often than not, there are many actual cases where designers are not sure how to protect their design rights, ideas and trademarks the correct way because of the lack of understanding about design infringement law and rights. Moreover, with high accessibilty of internet information today, original designs can be more easily copied by other people worldwide.

Hence, design piracy is a farce we need to deal with nowadays. Here are a few tips to how you can protect yourself against design piracy:

A. Understand the different Intellectual Property Laws pertinent for design protection below:

1. Patent:

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor) for a limited period of time. An innovative product idea and its technology process can be considered for patenting.

To obtain a patent, the inventors must file patent applications in each and every country that they want protection in, such as Japan, China, the US or India. Some regional offices exist, such as the European Patent Office (EPO), which have the power to grant patents which can be brought into effect in the member states.

2. Copyright:

A copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is ©. Copyright can be applied in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or “works”. It is not intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques represented by the copyright work.

Under coyrighting, Creative Commons enables copyright holders to grant some or all of their rights to the public while retaining others through a variety of licensing and contract schemes including dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. This allows authors, scientists, artists, and educators to easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry, where CC terms can be from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”

3. Registered Design:

The outward appearance (shape, configuration or pattern) of a design applied to an article (object which design is done on) can also be protected through registration. Such registration excludes the protection of the principle of construction, computer programs and designs that are solely functional.

4.Trademarks:

A trade mark, ™ or ®, is a distinctive sign being used by an organization to uniquely identify itself, its products and services to distinguish itself or its products from those of other organizations.

Conventionally, a trademark comprises a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements. Registering a trademark gives the owner rights to enable him to control the usage of the sign. A registered trademark has to be capable of being represented graphically.

Well known marks are offered a greater scope of protection. Hence, the owner of a well known mark may take action against the use of a trade identifier under certain circumstances.

B. Know what you want to register your design for, and seek expert advice from your local IP office or check the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) to understand the steps involved for filing registrations.

C. Do not disclose/publish your design before seeking registration, unless in good faith.

In recent reports, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling, quoted the Cisco lawsuit as a “silly” one as several companies are already using the term iPhone for VoIP products. He highlighted that Apple was the first to ever use the name for a cellphone, and mentioned: “if Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we’re very confident we’ll prevail.”

So, will Apple Inc. win their lawsuit against Cisco over the “iPhone” trademark or will they be forced to change the name? Let 469 know your views on this case, and other ways on how you can protect your design.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 5:33 and is filed under Designer Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.