Design Patents For Fine Gold Jewelry

Back in 1641, patent laws originated to protect salt manufacturers in the Massachusetts Bay colony in the United States. Congress was given the power to enforce federal patent laws once the Constitution of the United States was effective in 1789. The Congress introduced the federal patent law in 1790. There were laws made for jewelry design patent.

Jewelers were granted two types of patents. It started in 1850 to guard from copying from major competitors. Patents for designs protect the idea behind the design and how it’s done while the utility patents guard how the product works or being used.

In the United States, there are more utility patents than design patents. As for the duration of a patent, a utility patent can conceivably continue in effect for seventeen years, while a design patent can only protect a design for seven years.  The life of design patents averages 3.5 years. In some cases, manufacturers opt not to acquire a patent on a certain product.

Fine gold jewelry is one of those product designs that fine gold jewelry makers did not feel needed patenting, since gold pieces are often made for specific events or for one single season and don’t require the expense of a seven-year patent. To acquire a patent, a company must pay at least $60. This expense is not cost productive for some companies if the patent is going to run out in just seven years, depending on the item they are wanting to patent.  They can dodge this expense without being noticed.

Utility patents on mechanisms might last more than twenty years and is valuable in protecting the manufacturer for time frame. But you cannot always determine when a piece jewelry was designed and made just by by its patent date. Because the design patent is shorter people are given a smaller time frame to know when the jewelry was made. But a manufacturer might continue making the fine gold jewelry without changing the design even after the fine gold jewelry design patent has expired, making it hard to determine the actual time the original patent was obtained on the jewelry design, and thus, hard to determine the age of a specific piece of fine gold jewelry.

In 1947, jewelry makers began copyrighting their designs instead of patenting them, when copyright laws were enacted. Since this was introduced, the need for patents decreases. In 1955 the Trifari Company brought a suit against the Charel Jewelry company. Trifari Company claimed that Charel Jewelry had stolen some of their designs for costume jewelry, specifically the “bolero” designs. Copyrights are easier to obtain than patents and they cost less; therefore, they are more practical for fine jewelry designers and also they are more valuable. There is a small copyright symbol you can find beside the company’s name to show that they have a copyright on the fine gold jewelry.

Even though patents were eliminated it still gave fascinating views in the past.

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