I drifted from my point.
> Jewelry is an old business
John nailed it. "Hallmarks" go back to Babylon. We mostly know about Purity hallmarks, where a King or Guild inspects gold/silver for excess adulteration. But maker-marks go with that idea. And you know the first time a Babylonian goldsmith sold through a dealer instead of direct, the dealer had a gold-tint copper copy made in another alley.
You hate to dent a lovely ring, but it has been "essential" for thousands of years. And the mechanics have not changed (until this Laser thing, but same idea different tool).
Aside from marking, if you want to command an artist's price instead of a casting-fee you need to make the market know to "look for the J".
> I will sue PRR for causing me to splatter tea all over my pc
Not sure where that happened. Perhaps "polished moose-turd"? This IS widely available here, apparently from multiple crafters; at least in Alaska and Maine flavors. Perhaps the first M-T jeweler could claim some novelty IP, and an improved polishing technique would still be patentable. (Doubt the total market would cover the filing fee.) But it is exceptionally difficult for Ms. Joel to have jewelry SO unique that an ignorant judge would find the store at-fault for offering similar rock/gold (or turd) craftwork.
There was a textbook case. Those bicycle racks bent from large pipe? The first guy to do it got a patent. Another guy did a very similar thing, and sold a lot. This went to court and boiled for years. Is it decorative? Is it mechanical? What does "bend" mean? As you say, "the law itself is not black and white." It can't be: the world of invention is infinite. I think the upshot of the bike-rack was that one company ran out of money before any point-of-law was established, though both lawyers got new cars.
Here's an item for discussion: Neumann U67/87 Mic and RCA 44B/BX Mic earrings and tie-tacks.
Unique? Something the gang here would buy? Or clone?
The same shop has M-T earrings, tie-tack, and swizzle sticks; look for "poop".
We won't even go into moose turd pie.
> a bargaining chip when negotiating with the big dogs
Wikipedia notes that most patent "fights" go to Cross-Licensing, not to court.
There is a real issue: it can become impossible to make useful products because too many different inventors hold important patents. In WWI the US Government found that they could NOT buy a radio which was FREE of ALL patent infringement. The short-term answer was to assert that Gov could use any essential patent and discuss the fee later. This lead to the founding of RCA, which was originally supposed to be an office of filing cabinets to cross-license radio patents.
> assert a common law copyright
I think that vanished in the 1972(?) US Copyright Act. No registration is needed for most works, and I do not think you even need a copyright notice, although if you expect to go to court there may be some advantage to it. Since 99.9% of all we create does NOT go to court, the Act takes the commonsense approach: they don't want to see your stuff.
Obviously if you have something bigger than a $999 manuscript or ring at stake, you should find professional advice. AND use your own brain.
> Jewelry is an old business
John nailed it. "Hallmarks" go back to Babylon. We mostly know about Purity hallmarks, where a King or Guild inspects gold/silver for excess adulteration. But maker-marks go with that idea. And you know the first time a Babylonian goldsmith sold through a dealer instead of direct, the dealer had a gold-tint copper copy made in another alley.
You hate to dent a lovely ring, but it has been "essential" for thousands of years. And the mechanics have not changed (until this Laser thing, but same idea different tool).
Aside from marking, if you want to command an artist's price instead of a casting-fee you need to make the market know to "look for the J".
> I will sue PRR for causing me to splatter tea all over my pc
Not sure where that happened. Perhaps "polished moose-turd"? This IS widely available here, apparently from multiple crafters; at least in Alaska and Maine flavors. Perhaps the first M-T jeweler could claim some novelty IP, and an improved polishing technique would still be patentable. (Doubt the total market would cover the filing fee.) But it is exceptionally difficult for Ms. Joel to have jewelry SO unique that an ignorant judge would find the store at-fault for offering similar rock/gold (or turd) craftwork.
There was a textbook case. Those bicycle racks bent from large pipe? The first guy to do it got a patent. Another guy did a very similar thing, and sold a lot. This went to court and boiled for years. Is it decorative? Is it mechanical? What does "bend" mean? As you say, "the law itself is not black and white." It can't be: the world of invention is infinite. I think the upshot of the bike-rack was that one company ran out of money before any point-of-law was established, though both lawyers got new cars.
Here's an item for discussion: Neumann U67/87 Mic and RCA 44B/BX Mic earrings and tie-tacks.
Unique? Something the gang here would buy? Or clone?
The same shop has M-T earrings, tie-tack, and swizzle sticks; look for "poop".
We won't even go into moose turd pie.
> a bargaining chip when negotiating with the big dogs
Wikipedia notes that most patent "fights" go to Cross-Licensing, not to court.
There is a real issue: it can become impossible to make useful products because too many different inventors hold important patents. In WWI the US Government found that they could NOT buy a radio which was FREE of ALL patent infringement. The short-term answer was to assert that Gov could use any essential patent and discuss the fee later. This lead to the founding of RCA, which was originally supposed to be an office of filing cabinets to cross-license radio patents.
> assert a common law copyright
I think that vanished in the 1972(?) US Copyright Act. No registration is needed for most works, and I do not think you even need a copyright notice, although if you expect to go to court there may be some advantage to it. Since 99.9% of all we create does NOT go to court, the Act takes the commonsense approach: they don't want to see your stuff.
Obviously if you have something bigger than a $999 manuscript or ring at stake, you should find professional advice. AND use your own brain.
