Apparently,
(a) the design was inspired by traditional Faeroe Island patterns, but
(b) fitted to Ms Lund, and
(c) hand knitted on the Faeroes.
The Guardian says it was a copyright infringement case (but newspapers do get these things wrong). What would the outcome have been in the UK? No doubt that the result as shown is aesthetically appealing, but is it the jersey, or "the package" (as Walton J put it in Merlet v Mothercare in the UK)? Particular hand-knitted jerseys were found to be "works of artistic craftsmanship" in New Zealand (Bonz v Cooke), but the traditional nature of the pattern in this case perhaps calls into question the level of artistry. So, does the sweater merit life-plus-70 years of protection? What do readers think? Comments (particularly from Scandinavian readers) welcome.
On the general subject of knitwear as infringement, it seems that the BBC amicably settled their notorious 2008 claim against knitter Mazzmatazz over her knitwear Dalek. Once more, ADR knits up the ravelled sleeve of care. Indeed, their US site now has a knitting circle page featuring all manner of Whovian knitwear.
And on the general subject of Scandinavia, Class 99-er David Stone will be joining others at a seminar entitled "10 years – experience of Community Design law", run by the Danish Association of Intellectual Property Attorneys ("ADIPA") in Copenhagen on 12 April. The flyer is here, and ADIPA want your money as soon as possible. Since OHIM's own 10 year celebration is on 8-9 April in Alicante, you may wish to keep that week clear and check the flight times well in advance.
This is from a Norwegian reader, Thomas Nicholson of the Norwegian IPO - many thanks, Thomas:
ReplyDeleteWe read your blog on the Faroe sweaters. This issue is quite interesting in Norway as it connects traditional design and common heritage on the one hand with copyright, industrial design and trade marks on the other.
In Norway, we have many traditional knitting designs, and following also Sarah Lunds example it is now quite fashionable to wear knitted sweaters with traditional or traditional-looking designs. There is an industry not only for knitted sweaters, but also for the sale of patterns for home-knitted sweaters, hats, stockings and mittens. The producers of these patterns usually also provide the wool.
One particularly interesting case is the so-called “Marius” sweater. Inspired by traditional designs, the sweater was created in 1953 (although this is disputed) and named after the downhill skier Marius Eriksen. There is no doubt that it has been inspired by traditional design and it is normally knitted in the national colours red, white and blue. It resurfaces as a fashion item from time to time and it is an iconic clothing item in Norway. There is a Wikipedia page about the sweater (all in Norwegian), with links to articles about the sweater, its history and the dispute concerning its origin:
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariusgenser
A trademark application for the Marius design in black and white is currently pending before the Norwegian IPO (application number 201114133,
https://dbsearch2.patentstyret.no/Search.aspx
The question is: will it be perceived as an indication of commercial origin? If yes, we're potentially talking of more than life-plus-70 years protection.
As to your question on the life-plus-70 years protection for designs. These sweaters often borrow heavily from traditional designs, and our guess would probably be that copyright protection (if any) would be limited to identical designs.
Thomas Hvammen Nicholson