Legal Regulation of Protection of Jewelry as an Object of Intellectual Property

Currently, much attention is paid to the protection of intellectual property in all areas of business in general and in the jewelry industry in particular. This is due primarily to the maintenance of a high level of developed competition among participants in market relations. Realizing the fact that not a single modern business system functions without intellectual support, entrepreneurs, investing significant funds in the production and promotion of their product, decide the issue of granting legal protection to intellectual property objects at the initial stage of creating a commercial project.

There is a lot of interest among jewelry designers and manufacturers in the best practices for protecting intellectual property. In recent years, there have been many lawsuits in international practice for violation of copyright for jewelry design, Ukraine is not exception. A proper understanding of this topic is key to getting the proper recognition and financial benefit from the original creation from the manufacturer.

In order to comprehensively investigate this topic, the author considers various types of rights protection, such as copyright, patent and trademark (three-dimensional sign).

It is determined that jewelry belongs to works of applied art and is subject to copyright. This means that it is the form of expression of the work that is protected, and not the idea, process, concept.

Regardless of whether the work has been made public, copyright to it arises from the very fact of its creation and does not require the author to register or in any other special way to formalize his rights.

With regard to a patent, the author determines that a piece of jewelry can be protected as an industrial design, provided that it is new (in other words, an identical item or that has minor differences, has not been made public) and has an individual character (that is, a consumer can distinguish one product from another one). It is the appearance of the product that is protected, which is determined by the lines, contours, color, shape, texture, material of the product.

Author also analyzes the international jurisprudence, and provides examples of national cases considered by the courts in our time.

On the basis of the analysis and the considered examples from practice, it was concluded that the provision of legal protection to original artistic and design solutions of jewelry can be ensured in the following ways: defending copyright to the developed design in court; obtaining a patent for an industrial design - the appearance of a product; registration of a trademark.

In addition, author notes that the combination of all three-protection tools strengthens the position of the owner when defending his rights in court.