Jewelry
Seeking protection for your jewelry designs may be important for your business. Original jewelry designs or new combinations may be eligible for copyright protection and/or registration. Useful articles with novel ornamental designs may also be eligible for design patent protection. Further, designs, ornamentation, or logos may be eligible for trademark registration. Any or all of these potential protections may help prevent copying or knock-offs of your designs. Since may items of commerce are produced overseas, it is very desirable to have ways to discourage an overseas factory from selling overruns of your production to others.
A few considerations
Here are a few considerations with regard to protecting jewelry designs. Many of these considerations apply to other products, such as shoes, purses, silverware, dresses, boxes.
- Whether to obtain copyright registration & whether to obtain multiple registrations for separate works
- If markings on the goods are proper
- What protections a registration provides
- Whether to seek trademark registration and for what aspect of the product and packaging
- Whether to develop a brand for the jewelry and how
- A company name is not necessarily a trademark
- Enforcement against infringers - developing a cost effective plan
- How to deal with knockoffs purchased by your buyers
- How to deal with Competitors selling knockoffs
- How to deal with an overseas factory or importer
- Can I have knock-offs stopped at the border?
- Whether seeking a design patent may be appropriate
- Do you have an ornamental design for a useful object - clasps, fasteners, locks?
- Do you have sales and/or licensing agreements?
- Do you have "work for hire" agreements with your employees?
- Do you have copyright rights from your contract designers?
- Do you have copyright rights if your designers are overseas?
- Do you have invention agreements if you are considering design patents?
This firm reviews current business and relationship(s) our clients have with their employees and/or contractors and/or overseas designers -- to evaluate their intellectual property protections and options for building their intellectual property estate. Further, review and assesment can be made of the need to assert rights against infringers, defend against accusations of infringement, or prepare protections to strengthen future assertions or mitigate future accusations.