Not (Necessarily) Narrower: Rethinking the Relative Scope of Copyright Protection for Designs

IP Theory Volume 3 | Issue 2 Article 4 Spring 2013 Not (Necessarily) Narrower: Rethinking the Relative Scope of Copyright Protection for Designs Sarah Burstein University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Follow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ipt Part of the Civil Law Commons, Commercial Law Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Legislation Commons, and the Rule of Law Commons Recommended Citation Burstein, Sarah (2013) "Not (Necessarily) Narrower: Rethinking the Relative Scope of Copyright Protection for Designs," IP Theory: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 4. Available at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ipt/vol3/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in IP Theory by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact . IPtheory Volume 3: Issue 2 Not (Necessarily) Narrower: Rethinking the Relative Scope of Copyright Protection for Designs Sarah Burstein* There is ongoing and long-standing debate about whether the United States should provide more intellectual property protection for designs and, if so, what form that protection should take.1 A number of prior commentators have argued that the United States should protect designs using copyright or a copyright-like sui generis regime.2 These commentators often base their arguments, at least in part, on the assertion that copyright protection is narrower than design patent protection.3 Although commentators sometimes point to various copyright doctrines in support of this assertion,4 the basic premise—i.e., that a “right to prevent copying”5 of designs would be narrower than design patent protection—seems to be generally accepted as a truism. This Essay questions that premise. Even if, as a general matter, a patent provides “a stronger monopolistic right”6 for its prototypical subject matter than a copyright provides for its prototypical subject matter, that does not necessarily mean that the same is true when each regime is applied to designs.7 * Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Many thanks to the participants in The Future of Design Protection conference and to Peter K. Yu for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this Essay. Thanks also to Hayes Martin for able research assistance. 1. As used in this Essay, “design” refers to a design for the configuration of all or part of anything that qualifies as a “useful article” under the U.S. Copyright Act. See 17 U.S.C. § 101. 2. E.g., Susanna Monseau, The Challenge of Protecting Industrial Design in a Global Economy, 20 Tex. Intell. Prop. L.J. 495, 543 (2012) (arguing that Congress should amend the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, which provides copyright-like sui generis protection, to protect “all industrial design”). 3. E.g., Steve W. Ackerman, Note, Protection of the Design of Useful Articles: Current Inadequacies and Proposed Solutions, 11 Hofstra L. Rev. 1043, 1049 (1983) (“The extent of design patent protection . . . greatly surpasses that of copyright protection.”) (citing Alfred Bell & Co. v. Catalda Fine Arts, Inc., 191 F.2d 99, 102 (2d Cir. 1951)). 4. See Section II, infra. 5. See William T. Fryer, III, Design Patent System for the Twenty-First Century, 24 AIPLA Q.J. 331, 355 (1996). As conceptualized in this Essay, a “right to prevent copying” would not be subject to a separability requirement. See generally note 37, infra. 6. See Orit Fischman Afori, Reconceptualizing Property in Designs, 25 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 1105, 1134 (2008). 7. Cf. Mark A. Lemley, The Economics of Improvement in Intellectual Property Law, 75 Tex. L. Rev. 989, 1029 (1997) (noting that “[c]opyright is traditionally thought to afford weaker . . . protection than patent law” but arguing that “in the context of improvements, the opposite result obtains”). 114 This Essay briefly reviews the relevant portions of U.S. design patent and copyright law and the limiting copyright doctrines discussed by prior commentators. Based on this preliminary analysis, this Essay concludes that a right to prevent copying designs could be just as broad as— if not broader than—design patent protection. If this is true, then many of the arguments made in support of adopting a copyright-like regime to protect designs need to be reexamined.8 I. Brief Background on The Relevant Law In the United States, design patents are available for “any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.”9 Design patents, like other patents, are only granted after substantive examination by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”).10 Once a design patent is granted, the owner has the right to exclude others from making, using, offering to sell, selling or importing objects embodying the design.11 By contrast, U.S. copyright law grants authors six discrete rights, including the right “to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies” and “to distribute copies . . . of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.”12 These rights arise upon fixation; no ex ante substantive examination is required.13 Most designs qualify as “useful articles”14 under the Copyright Act and, thus, are protected “if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.”15 Therefore, designs are largely excluded from copyright protection in the United States. II. Copyright Is Not (Necessarily) Narrower For Designs In support of the assertion that copyright is narrower than design patent protection, previous commentators have pointed to three aspects of copyright law: (1) the idea-expression dichotomy; (2) the requirement of copying; and (3) the doctrine of fair use. However, even a brief examination of these principles indicates that none of them would necessarily make the 8. See Section III, infra. 9. 35 U.S.C. § 171. 10. See id. § 131. In practice, however, the PTO appears to apply little, if any, substantive scrutiny to design patent applications. See Dennis D. Crouch, A Trademark Justification for Design Patent Rights 7 (U. Mo. Sch. of L. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-17), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1656590 (arguing “that the current design patent examination system operates as a de facto registration system”). 11. See 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). 12. 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(1), (3). 13. Id. § 102(a). 14. See id. § 101 (“A ‘useful article’ is an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. An article that is normally a part of a us (...truncated)