In general, a complaint to New York’s version of what in
Massachusetts is called the Board of Bar Overseers may be in order.
Some of the fishing is delegated to what my Family Law Attorney
girlfriend refers to as “baby lawyers”- they are new to practice,
eager to earn their huge salary, and make mistakes if not properly
supervised every step of they way, they love to take initiative. And,
their practice is liable for those mistakes. A complaint to the Board
is usually enough- has to be answered promptly, eats up a lot of
un-billable hours for the offending attorney, and can lead to
penalties, including in severe cases, being disbarred. Oh, and a
huge potential increase in their malpractice insurance premium…
Ok So we know Yurman has copied ancient design… I’m wondering if a
person did something similar yet different, say adding different
sized wire to the twist would this still be infringing? When I see
this twisted wire design I think “torque” not “Yurman”, Maybe the
nice young man who does TIDBITS could do a blurb on Torques!!!
I’ve been trying to follow this thread as I find it very
interesting. I guess I have 2 questions.
what is a “twisted bangle”? From all my read ing I keep getting
vision of the “Q Bracelet” advertised on tv that is supposed to cure
about any thing that aches or pains you.
is this really a question of intellectual property proprietorship?
That can be patented but if we are talking something like packageing
doesn’t that fall under Trademark regulations?I honestly don’t know
and would like to understandthis better.
I’m currently working of a wire swaging gadget that will probably
work for your tapering needs. Contact me off list and we can
include your specific requirements in the project.
The beginning of this whole thread was someone wondering how this
type of bracelet is made. They mentioned, “Sorta like what
Such-and-such does.”, which made the thread evolve into copyright and
trademark issues. A twisted bangle is simply some sort of twisted
wire bent around into a bracelet. I have seen them ranging from 2 16
gauge wires twisted together on up to bracelets 3/8" thick, but
they’re all “twisted wire bracelets”. I can’t vouch for their medical
value, but my personal guess is that it’s roughly zero…
Survival and profitablility. It's wise to pick your battles. This
might seem like capitulation to some
This is part of a response to me saying “Fight tooth and nail”. It’s
not that I was misunderstood, but what I meant was that I wouldn’t
settle with them. I wouldn’t hand them $50,000 just so they would go
away, or even $5,000. If I HAD copied them, that would be different.
If they didn’t drop it, though, I’d be getting a portfolio together
of the historic works they have copied, so they would drop it.
So, if one of Yurman's pieces looked exactly like a piece that was
made long ago and one were to produce a picture of this ancient
work, would it then void Yurman's copyright protection? It seems
that it would cease to be "an original work of authorship" at that
point.
Would it void his protection under copyright, no, not at all. In
copyright law “original” means essentially “created from his, or
your, mind” (without having copied, or effectively “derived [only the
court in each particular case can decide what exactly derived means]”
from, what you/he saw, heard, etc.) and has nothing whatever to do
with “original” in terms of first in the world. (Original in terms of
the world, or some subunit thereof, is a patent law feature, not
copyright, not trademark.) You too can create and sell and own a
copyright on exact look-alikes of Yurman’s works—provided, of
course, you’ve actually totally created them yourself without having
seen Yurman’s (or pictures of them, that’s a tough hurdle to
overcome, BTW).
I was in Rockport, MA. several years ago and had a conversation with
another jeweler who has known David Yurman for most of his career.
The cable designs began after David made a trip to Ireland. Prior to
that, he was struggling along, the jeweler helped David out one season
by selling off his bead inventory in their stores.
Actually the direct quote from the original email on this was:
I'd like to know what size round wire is used to make twisted wire
bangles similar to the trademark David Yurman bracelet.
While the word similar is used, you’ll note that he specifically
references “the trademark David Yurman bracelet”. And my original
comment back was why in the world would you publicize on the web that
you wanted to copy a trademark design. That comment still stands. Of
course torques have been done for hundreds of years. But the poster
didn’t say “How do I make a torque bracelet?”. They said “how do I
copy a trademarked piece”. Hence the issue of trademark and all the
rest of this long thread. There ought to be a way to declare a thread
beaten to death after awhile however. { - ;
Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
There ought to be a way to declare a thread beaten to death after
awhile however. { - ;
There is. It is dead when people quit paying attention to it.
Personally I find this one of the most fascinating threads I have
seen on Orchid in a long time.
Someone should send Yurman’s lawyers a copy of Herbert Marion’s
classic book on metalworking and insist that they specifically list
which of the many examples of twisted wire illustrated there are
presumed to be protected by the trademark/copyright/trade dress.
I was in Rockport, MA. several years ago and had a conversation
with another jeweler who has known David Yurman for most of his
career. The cable designs began after David made a trip to Ireland.
Prior to that, he was struggling along, the jeweler helped David
out one season by selling off his bead inventory in their stores.
Cool! I want, first and foremost, to change my medium as soon as I
can, but with 8k (I know, not a lot to some) wrapped up in the bead
inventory, it’s kinda hard to make the switch. I was thinking about
Ebay.
If anyone would like a nice bead inventory at cost or better, let me
know. Out with the old, in with the new. That’s going to be my motto
from now on.