In the protection of design awarded by Danish legislation, copyright plays a key role. It protects designers’ rights to their work, but copyright-holders must be able to document when they created a given design.

By Hans Emborg Bünemann

Designs are protected by copyright law, an intellectual property right that protects original works. This legal protection makes it illegal to copy a design without permission, as explained here by Stina Teilmann, Ph.D., who is a research assistant professor at The Danish Design School under the auspices of the Danish Centre for Design Research. Her research project, which receives funding from the Carlsberg Foundation, analyses Danish legal protection of designs in a cultural history perspective.

The verdict: In 2001, the Danish Supreme Court ordered the Danish furniture manufacturer Tvilum Møbelfabrik A/S to stop marketing the children's chair '2-step' (both photos, right). The verdict states that the chair is "such a close copy that it violates the copyright associated with the Tripp Trapp chair." Photos: Stokke A/S

Experts Assess the Degree of Originality
In cases about possible copyright violation, the Danish court’s decisions rely on statements from expert witnesses. Among other aspects, they assess whether ordinary consumers would be able to tell two products apart, says Stina Teilmann.
“The expert witnesses assess whether the works are original,” she explains. “They have to rule out the possibility that more than one designer may have created identical works independently of each other, or that the design is simply determined by function. In other words, to enjoy copyright protection, a work must have a unique aesthetic element.”

Copies of the Tripp Trapp Chair
As an example, she mentions a case concerning copies of the children’s chair Tripp Trapp, which is produced by the Norwegian company Stokke. In 1994, Stokke used the Danish Copyright Act to sue the Danish furniture factory Tvilum Møbelfabrik, which had launched a similar high chair named 2-Step. The plagiarism case went all the way to Denmark’s Supreme Court.
“According to the experts, laymen – non-designers – might confuse the two chairs. The Supreme Court ordered Tvilum Møbelfabrik to stop marketing the 2-Step chair and to destroy the inventory,” says Stina Teilmann.

Documentation Is Crucial
Stina Teilmann offers a piece of sound advice for designers as well as design students: As far as possible, one should always be able to document when the idea for a design arose. This may be crucial for the ability to claim one’s copyright:
“It’s important to date drafts – and to preserve them. And when design students present projects in school, they may want to think of their fellow students and teachers as witnesses in a potential future dispute,” says Stina Teilmann.

To illustrate her point, she mentions a case where the architectural student Tim Nørlund from the Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark, won an international competition in January 2008 for the design of a bridge to be constructed near Sheffield in the north of England. Tim Nørlund’s winning project, a footbridge with a ring-shaped pylon, was accused of plagiarising a road bridge designed by the Danish architectural firm Dissing+Weitling for construction in Qatar. However, Tim Nørlund’s teacher and fellow students were able to testify that he had presented a proposal resembling the winning project at the school of architecture back in 2006, and consequently Dissing+Weitling dropped the case.

The Danish architectural firm Dissing+Weitling wrongfully accused architectural student Tim Nørlund of plagiarism when his design of a bridge with ring-shaped pylons won a competition in the UK. Illustrations: Tim Nørlund (top) and Dissing+Weitling (bottom).

Aggressive Corporate Approach
Stina Teilmann says that businesses have begun to focus increasingly on copyright issues in recent years. To illustrate this trend, Teilmann tells the story of furniture designer Finn Juhl, who at some point in the 1960s learned that a Brazilian factory was producing knock-off versions of his furniture for the U.S. market. He went to the United States to check up on the story, but did not pursue the matter, as he found that the quality was good enough for the products to bear his name.
“Back then, it wasn’t just a matter of economic interests but also of professional pride – the desire to be associated with one’s oeuvre and to protect one’s name and reputation,” says Stina Teilmann.

Today, companies make strategic purchases of intellectual property rights and pursue this field as an independent business domain. The attitude to pursuing potential infringements legally has changed, and many companies now have a separate department for handling Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Stina Teilmann explains:
“Many companies take a very aggressive approach because it pays off. The rationale is that it’s better to invest in protecting one’s rights than to allow copyright violations and thus risking market shares. Take Stokke’s web site: It’s plastered over with ® symbols, which illustrates their focus on IPR. Even the Tripp Trapp chair slogan Much more than a high chair is trademark-registered.”

Front page illustration: Copies of the Series 7 chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1955 being destroyed (photo: Frank van Delft).

Mind Design #15, 2009