Copyright?

A question about : Copyright?

This seems to be the most appropriate place to post this.... if not please move it!

I am thinking of making and selling an item which is based on the same idea as another item which is already for sale. The idea being that I can produce it cheaper and therefore sell it cheaper than the orginal.

Lets say it's an item of clothing (it's not, but the principals are the same).

The orginal item is patented in the US, and the designs of the material used is copyrighted. I would be using different material although the design of the item would be simular, but not exactly the same.

My questions are:

Does the US patent apply in the Uk

Can you patent the general design of an item or only the exact design i.e. could you patent the general design of a pair of jeans, for example.

Thanks in advance!

Best answers:

• I can't answer the question... but the ebay board might have a few people who can
• Carrying on with your clothing analogy a few recent 'catwalk' copies have been successfully removed from sale by designers who felt that Top Shop copies were too close in design to their original designer dresses/bags etc.
  You would have to be careful in looking at how similar the design is as if it's too close I think they would have a case to assert their copyright.
  Read the Wiki on Patents - it might help you with the legal side https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent.
  Also, you might want to change the name of the thread to Patent and not copyright as Patent is on inventions etc and copyright is usually intellectual material eg books etc.
• I understand that there needs to be 6 main differences between the original and a "copy" or "based on" product. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I just heard this regarding a very popular style dress that was out in the summer