Amateur Furniture Blogger Gets Pinched by Pottery Barn

[cgallery]

You can't copyright a cabinet. You could copyright plans you create for making a cabinet, but not the cabinet itself.

It the cabinet has a unique decorative (for example) feature, you could get a design patent (Wiki) to cover that aspect. If the cabinet has a unique hidden compartment, you could get a utility patent.

If a unique design element involves a trademark, well, that is automatically protected under trademark law. If you use the Nike logo in a cabinet decoration, they aren't going to come after you for copyright, they're going to come after you for trademark.

[woodturner]

You can't copyright a cabinet.

Why not? Would you please explain your reasoning for this conclusion?

My understanding is that one can copyright a design - so that if someone builds an identical cabinet, they would be infringing the copyright. I agree that plans and documents can also be copyrighted, but my understanding is that the design itself can also be copyrighted.

[cgallery]

Why not? Would you please explain your reasoning for this conclusion?

My understanding is that one can copyright a design - so that if someone builds an identical cabinet, they would be infringing the copyright. I agree that plans and documents can also be copyrighted, but my understanding is that the design itself can also be copyrighted.

Sure. From http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html

Copyright protection is generally not available to articles which have a utilitarian function. Examples of these types of "useful articles" would include lamps, bathroom sinks, clothing, and computer monitors. Under the Copyright Act, the only copyright protection available to these items is for "features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article." Unfortunately, this test is inherently ambiguous when deciding the scope of copyright protection for certain useful articles.

From the same site (because I think it is interesting). It is often asked on woodworking forums whether someone can take plans for an item and make them for resale w/o reimbursing the author of the plans. Well, yes you can:

Another interesting copyright concern is the extent of copyright protection in pictoral or sculptural works that portray a useful article. Take, for example, a painting of a futuristic looking automobile. Copyright protection would prevent the outright copying of the painting. In addition, copyright law would prevent the creation of a three-dimensional model of the automobile found in the painting. However, under the specific terms of the Copyright Act, copyright law would not prevent General Motors from making a working (hence utilitarian) automobile of the design found in the painting.

[Shep]

I've always wondered about this. I agree with what cgallery stated above. It must be ok to copy design elements if they are not too unique. Seems like all the major WWing magazines copy designs all the time. Most of the time they state that they found insperation from such and such design from such and such company. The difference is that they usually change up the design a little bit (usually to make it beter).

I also agree that she is illegally using the Names of PB and LON without written permission. I'm sure if she never used their pictures or talked about the specific store, the parent company wouldn't have bothered contacting her. I am curious as to how she came up with the specific measurements. I can't see her taking a tape measure into the store and copying the exact dimensions. I think I'm missing something here.