Searchable copyright, anyone?
Date: 26/04/2010
Q: What’s the only good bit of the patent system?
A: The subject classification system.
So how can the classification system be used to benefit inventors? By using it to classify design copyright.
Patents are too expensive for most inventors and small companies, and offer too little actual protection to be considered value for money. Unregistered design right (aka design copyright), on the other hand, is free and can be quite powerful. But a big problem with it is that there is no single, official database of design copyright. However, that could be remedied very easily. Simply use the same subject classification system that is used for patents.
Seen purely as an information tool, the way patents are classified is superb. It’s what makes patents searchable. And there is no logical reason why it can’t be used to classify and search other forms of IPR too.
If national patent offices want to satisfy demand for affordable protection, and at the same time make money for themselves, they could charge a fee to assign a classification to a design, which would then appear on a searchable database. The fee could be significant enough to stop too many frivolous or nuisance applications (though God knows there are already plenty of them in patent literature). But once it’s paid, that is it. No renewal fees, and no translations unless the applicant wants to supply some. The process would be cheap, cheerful and practical.
A beefed-up design copyright system could be a useful staging post for ideas that need protection, perhaps for several years, while the inventor develops the idea and considers whether the expense of a patent or other forms of IPR is justified.
I concede that such a system will need refinement, but it should be workable if the will is there to make it work. And that, of course, is the problem. Let’s not bet on anyone at executive level within the current IPR system wanting to do anything to make it happen.
Replies
Reply From: Chris Flynn
Date: 04/05/2010
Hi Graham,
I think this type of reform is long overdue. That type of system could both raise the awareness of this type of protection relative to just patents and I suppose give them and services like ABMT better info on the existence of similar IP. I would be interested to hear more on your proposal and its benefits.
Chris
Flynn Product Design
Reply From: Graham Harris
Date: 30/07/2010
This is a bit like the Utility model patent available in many countries (but not the UK or US).
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