Hello all: Thanks to everybody who replied to my last inquiry about sundial patents and copyrights. Everyone was in agreement that the cost of a patent makes it unpractical for most sundials. Copyrights are a better alternative as they are much cheaper and easier to obtain and offer some measure of deterrence to copiers. Although many of you feel that they too are unnecessary.
Because most serious sundial makers make very limited numbers of hand-crafted custom sundials for specific locations (Including myself), there is apparently no need for them to worry about somebody copying their designs. Intellectual property rights protection would seem to be much more important for sundials that can be mass produced and sold everywhere. ( Portable dials or adjustable equatorials, for example). Now, lets look at those mass-produced garden sundials that we all love to hate. In many cases, the manufacturer has taken an old antique design of some horizontal dial which was designed orginally for a specific location, made a mold, and started churning them out like hotdogs. These people don't care that they are selling sundials that won't work properly for the buyer. In fact, they are careful not to mention this fact in the catalogues and in the little tags that they sometimes put on their product. But you must give them credit in that they are marketing experts. Their copied sundials appear in many catalogues, stores, and in professionally designed websites. In fact, if it wasn't for them, most people wouldn't even know what a sundial is, because these dials are the only ones that are readily available to the general public. Unfortunately, they are also responsible for the common notion that sundials can't tell time and are simply garden art. So, if you think that nobody will copy and market your beautiful custom-made, latitude specific sundial design, then you could be mistaken, because this is exactly what these companies have done. At least a twenty dollar copyright will give you some degree of protection. What do you want to bet that these garden sundial manufactures have copyrighted all of their "stolen" sundials? What the world needs are some beautiful, accurate and durable sundial designs that can be adjusted for any location, that tell Standard Time, and that can be mass-produced and marketed like the current garden variety. This would give these companies a run for their money, and would also promote the fact that sundials can be accurate timepieces. This fact could be a major selling point and played up in the catalogues, websites and on info tags accompaning each dial. Just a thought. John Carmichael Tucson Arizona http://www.azstarnet.com/~pappas
