Hello all: Hope all you Americans had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I have been having a discussion with a fellow dialist, who wishes to remain anonymous at this point, about copyrights and patents. Maybe some of you have also wondered about this before. Here is his dilemma : Let's say you read an article in "The Compendium" about someone's new idea for a sundial, and decide that you would like bring this design to life and enter into serious production of the sundial. Now the author of the published article only has drawings of his new sundial and presumeably no working model. You add several innovative features of your own to the original design and work out the manufacturing process. Now, after all this preliminary work, you are ready to begin production, and it occurs to you that maybe you should protect your project and efforts with a copyright or patent. But who has the legal rights to the finished sundial, the author of the original article or the manufacturer? Now I'm no lawyer, but I would assume that the original author wouldn't have published his new design if he didn't want the sundial to be built. Now I know that under copyright law that it's pretty much first come first served. In other words, the first person to apply for copyright or patent registration, regardless if he is the author or not, becomes the owner of the invention. I have heard horror stories of people who failed to obtain a copyright, and their ideas get stolen by someone else ( ie. the happy face logo, or the guy who invented in-line skates). But in this case, both parties have contributed their ideas to the final product. What should be done in this situation so that everybody wins and is happy with the outcome? Have any of you been faced with this situation, and what did you do to resolve it? Thanks, John Carmichael Tucson Arizona
