[sdiy] Legal issues of cloning

[Michael E Caloroso]

On 10/6/13, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
> Also the PCB layouts. They're an image, and that's copyrightable. Or is that
> what you meant by "art"?

Not very good protection.  Mackie copyrighted the PCB artwork on their
mixers and Behringer blatantly copied it.  When Mackie sought legal
resolution, the courts ruled for Behringer despite IP applied to PCB
artwork.

But when Behringer tried to clone Boss guitar pedals that resembled
Boss pedals, they were forced to change the casing under legal threat
from Roland citing violation of trade redress and trademark confusion.

There is better IP protection on the outward appearance of a product
(IE Fender and Gibson have trademarked the shape of their guitar
headstocks) and circuit architecture (IE Moog ladder circuit, ARP
tempco for expo converters) then there is on PC boards.

For this reason, many designers resort to either encasing critical
components in epoxy or sanding off markings on the ICs.

MC