"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote in message news:4715e1e9$1@news.povray.org...
>
> "Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
> news:web.471596c23cfdc2e9cf9b2e370@news.povray.org...
>> Anybody?   Did I ask a bad question?
>
>      No, not at all Charles. My take on it is that I wouldn't want to pass 
> on something that is 'exact' in dimension to the original. So I would 
> probably make the drawers wider/narrower, or just have a deep file drawer 
> to the left, or maybe just a cupboard to the left and no drawers.
>
>     ~Steve~
>

Hi Charles,

I agree with Steve, it's not a bad question, but I think we're a bit short 
of lawyers on this newsgroup. Maybe law, art and mathematics isn't a popular 
combination at college.

Myself I'm not a lawyer and, in general, this sort of law can get pretty 
complicated. In addition to protection afforded to manufacturers/designers 
under industrial design rights (which I hadn't read about before) there are 
copyright laws and patents to consider (all of which can also vary from 
country to country). On the other hand, I believe that, although things get 
more complex with products that have highly distinct/unique characteristics, 
they can be less complex with a more commonplace object like this sort of 
desk.

The basic layout of this desk doesn't seem to me to have anything 
particularly unique about it and I suspect that anything sufficiently 
different from the products of other manufacturers (to be covered by these 
laws) may well be mechanical rather than predominantly visual in nature. 
With ornate furniture you could run into problems if you copied intricate 
and unique decorative designs or another unique style attribute, but I 
suspect you're on safer ground with something relatively commonplace that 
doesn't have many unique characteristics.

You should look at your desk (the real one) and see whether there's anything 
that looks particularly unique that could potentially be covered by design 
rights and avoid duplicating that (any unique bevels/profiles, trademarks, 
logos, uniquely designed fixtures etc). I also agree with Steve that it 
depends how exact you've been in copying the dimensions, colours and 
textures etc. and it may be wise to make sure that they're not identical to 
the original, so that your design is as distinct as would be the design of 
another manufacturer of similar desks (though you'll find that many 
dimensions are pretty well standard anyway).

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Chris B.

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