Breakfast seminar - Design Law Without Design Law? The Rise of Copyright and Trademark in Shaping Design Protection

In this talk, Professor Christine Farley explores how intellectual property law protects design, and how that protection has evolved differently in the US and Europe. 

Many of today's most iconic designs were created during a golden age of design innovation, at a time when IP protections were largely unavailable or unused. Because these designs remain highly coveted decades later, their makers now turn to trademark and copyright law to fight dupes and lookalikes — tools built for other purposes, stretched to fit a job they were never designed for. The talk examines the poor fit between these borrowed doctrines and the designs they're asked to protect, and discusses what this tension means for designers, manufacturers, and the future of design culture. Attendees will gain insight into why design remains a puzzle the law still hasn't solved.

Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University in Washington D.C. She is an expert in IP who writes about conflicts between intellectual property rights and freedom of expression and intellectual property law’s treatment of art.

Register for the event here.

For questions, please contact events@hanken.fi