Dual Protection - Design and Copyright Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Dual Protection - Design and Copyright - Essay Example Besides, under what circumstances can dual protection are offered. Body Firstly, it is important to understand the differences between copyright protection and design protection. Though both are intellectual property and both aim to protect the rights of the IP holder, the objectives and techniques of protection of each would differ. The copyright protection would aim to protect the designer from any abuse of his or her rights whether or not the particular property has been registered or not. On the other hand, the industrial design would aim to provide security to the industry. Hence, simply based on their means of protection, there would be divergences. With relation to the duration of protection, copyright laws ensure an almost perpetual protection, whereas the design laws would only protect for a specific duration. Design laws have to be renewed every 5 years and to a maximum of 25 years in total. Hence, even if copyright and designs could be applied simultaneously, once the desi gn term is over, hardly anybody would be interested in the copyright existing. Another important difference is regarding the infringement processes associated with the design. Designs do offer protection even from innocent violators who may not know that a particular design is already registered and is protected. On the other hand, copyright provides for a wider fair use circle that would effectively protect innocent and non-commercial users. By the very nature of the mechanism of protection, it can be asserted that both designs and copyrights are present for different purposes. The next important difference is the extent of protection, though copyright would protect only expressions of ideas and not ideas, it protects the design in every conceivable form including when it may be used in a 2-dimensional or a 3-dimensional form. However, a design would only protect the appearance or the aesthetic appearance to the article for which it is registered. The final difference noted is that copyright does not require a registration process due to which 99% of all designs are actually registered by this mechanism. This has lead to protection of designs for longer duration and in all conceivable forms3. The dual level of protection has arisen from the definition of artistic work4 under the copyright Act and the general definition of design under the Design Act (Section 1)5. The criteria for fulfilling copyright, is that the work should be original and should have been created by the author, and there it is not necessary that the work be registered. Artistic work more often represents visual representations of intellectual work or ideas to be presented in a material form. One possibility is that drawings or works of craftsmanship which is in fact artistic work may also be design drawings of industrial products or articles of manufacture of various goods. Copyright law offers certain rights to the owner including the right to make copies of the work, the right to distribu te or communicate the work to the public, the right to translate or reproduce the work from one form to another (e.g. from a 2-dimensional work to a