Copyright Law and Industrial Design

Protection For Designs: Copyright Too Expensive to Afford?
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L. Linda Beatrice
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IV Year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)

NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL OF INDIA UNIVERSITY
BANGALORE

Contents Introduction 3 The Origin of Design and Copyright 4 Design Protection: Its Rationale and Incidents 6 Doctrine of Separability: Unity of Art and Theory of Disocciation 6 The Overlap 8 Its genesis and treatment 8 A compromise 9 Over Protection or Under Protection? 10 The Economic Ripple 11 Conclusion 13 Bibliography 14 Table of Cases 23

Introduction
The history of intellectual property law represents, in its essence a bargain between the interests of society from being able to utilize and copy innovations, and literary and artistic works, and the interest in protecting the benefit to the creator so as to stimulate further such work. Enactment of copyright legislation was not based upon any natural right that the author has upon his writings but upon the ground that the welfare of the public will be better served by securing to authors for limited periods the exclusive rights to their writings. Property rights represent the principal vehicle for enabling creators and producers to appropriate the value of their efforts. Preserving a delicate balance therefore, is of paramount importance. However, intellectual property rights have, in certain circumstances, begun to overlap and provide simultaneous or sequential protection for some inventive and creative works mainly by accretion rather than design. The traditional channeling doctrines used to determine which area protects a certain interest have had their boundaries blurred, and overlapping areas has become a phenomenon, its most prominent manifestation being the overlap of protection afforded to designs under the design laws and the copyright laws. This paper, by tracing the source and genesis of the rights afforded to

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