Learn How To Properly Protect Your Art Or Design By Law

But only after you've stepped out onto the market you see your brainchild being sold by someone else, for far less. Your project has been stolen!

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For this not to happen, or to have an effective response if it does, you should protect your art or design legally in whatever means necessary. To do so requires a bit of know-how of how the law works in this field, what can be patented, how long does the protection lasts, what to do in case of intellectual theft, and so on.

What Counts as Intellectual Theft Anyway?

Intellectual property theft, in some cases known as piracy, is when someone uses another's idea, art, innovations, or other without their permission. But while classical theft involves physically taking something from someone, here the stolen 'object' still exists with its owner, though it now loses a part of its value.

Online piracy of media content and video games is a growing problem for that industry, but industrial espionage and theft of technological innovations is an even bigger problem on a national level. Investing huge amounts of capital in research and development, to be ahead of the market, only to be nulled by having your results taken free of charge and used by someone else to earn a profit.

All of this is at least slowed down, if not outright stopped, with proper copyright laws.

Where to Start

Your best bet is to start by looking for a registered patent attorney, as they are the ones with the most experience and legal background in handling these cases. Submitting a request for patent applications is only the start of the process, as a patent can be issued only after a lengthy search of those that have been accepted earlier, not to mention searching for the same or similar things globally.

If your art, for example, is incredibly similar to already existing art made by another person - it cannot be fully protected if the other person has already done so. That is done to avoid plagiarism in art and academia. So try to be unique and there will be no problem!

What is the Scope of Patent Protection?

Every patent has a certain scope that is defined by the claims of the patent, which is essentially the boundary of the patent owner's right to exclude anything or anyone falling within the scope of the claims. This, of course, needs to be within reasonable limits and be very evident from the patent description. Someone drawing a black line on white canvas cannot expect that this could be protected as intellectual property in any way.

Patents last for 20 years from the moment the request has been filled. They will generally only be protected in the country where they have been accepted, so finding your idea being used somewhere else may be difficult, though not impossible, to prevent.

In Case the Worst Happens

The worst scenarios can be one of two options - either someone has infringed your patent, or you discover that your idea already exists and has been patented. Both options are rather unpleasant and can have several outcomes.

If someone has accidentally infringed a patent, for example, because they are new on the market and didn't know it existed, or even if it was on purpose - the owner of the patent has to take the matter to court. But because this is a civil matter, punishment is not severe and is usually only to the extent that the perpetrator has to pay royalties to the owner. Usually the amount the owner would otherwise ask for if someone wanted to use the patent.

On the other hand - if you are the one who used someone else's patent, there is little you can do to protect your idea. You can either change it enough that it may be accepted as unique, or you may try and buy the patent from the other artist or inventor so that it is your own.

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That small © that stands in one of the corners of a logo or item is what shows you someone took the time to protect their idea from intellectual theft. Copyright laws may not be as strict as artists and inventors want them to be, but they offer at least a minimum of protection and should be applied whenever possible.

Marvin Fry

Update 18 March 2021