Official Luthiers Forum!

How do you protect a design feature.
Let's say you have a logo, headstock, body shape, saddle, etc that you'd like to protect.
Patents are too expensive. Has anyone tried copywriting or trademarking?
How do you decide what to do and when to do it?
How much does it cost?
Do you use a service or is this something you can easily do for yourself?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

That is only the tip of the iceburg. You also have to DEFEND it and that isn't really practical for small guys like us. We would get eaten alive by the lawyer fees.

Some big company could steal the idea and say..."ok, sue us" and you would have to face their corporate attorneys and most likely an outside firm who generates paper by the truck load looking to win by "lawyering you to death."

I have been there.

Intellectual property protection sounds well and good, but practically speaking it isn't much protection unless you have the means to defend it.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

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Legally any original idea/design etc. is your own intellectual property to which you hold copyright automatically. In our circumstances this could be things like a uniquely shaped headstock, bridge, radical new body design etc. Trademarks then would apply to specific (and unique) words or images and incur costs to protect.

Patents don't really come into play until you start dealing with the more technical side of things.

As Brock suggested, having in place the legal protection is the easy part. Defending and enforcing is the next step.

At any rate, these legal measures are to prevent loss of income from imitators etc.. If someone "borrowed" your design and you have the sufficient evidence to back up your claim, you'd be well within your right to take legal action. Of course the costs of doing so will be far outweighed by any possible remedies, unless a major company decided to plagiarise you.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

Well put, Todd. I think all the posts above seem to sum it up rather well. Aside from the occasional spectacular, new, and distinct (or at least well funded and marketed) innovation, I think most patent and trademarks are sought for the ego of the designer. Especially regarding patents, few have any real benefit to the small shop / individual builder in the end.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

One need look no further than Ned Steinberger for the reasons one doesn't bother with this stuff. Logos, branding, i.e., your name, those you should defend, but concepts are going to cost you. Steinberger came out with the headless guitar. He spent his fortune trying to obtain an international patent on its design. Western concepts of intellectual property and Asian ones are very different. When Pearlworks went about obtaining a patent on Abalam, they deliberately chose only to obtain a US patent and defend it here. The US is a large market. If you can afford to just defend it here, then you're probably doing pretty well.

Designs having been in the public domain, there isn't a lot that hasn't already been done. Although Tom Humphrey, as well as Ralph Novax, obtained patents for their concepts there is enough prior historical art to undermine the patent and put it in the public domain.

You're better off spending your time learning to advance your art than trying to defend some small part of it.

There is a lot of good stuff on this website: http://www.uspto.gov about IP protection and the process. I realize and agree that patent protection is not in many cases scaled for small entities, but some of what is being said here is factually incorrect. Don't write off the entire world of IP protection without doing some homework.

Another great line to put in my book of quotes.

I can't count how many instances I've seen this prove true, and people in our trade benefit far more from sharing than guarding. On the other side, I'm quite sure the success and benefit rate is far far less for many luthiers attempts to profit from their patents.

If you have an idea that may sell thousands of units per year, you may do well to patent it. If you're simply patenting to secure a peculiar feature for your small production of instruments, you're unlikely to see any real benefits.

Still, it sounds like you're more interested in trademarks than patents, which are much easier and practical to obtain (though not necessarily any easier to enforce and protect).

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.