COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION OF DESIGNS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, Thursday, February 13, 1930. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Albert H. Vestal (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We are here this morning to take up H. R. 7243, amending the statutes of the United States to provide for copyright registration of designs. At this point the bill will be inserted in the record. [H. R. 7243, Seventy-first Congress, second session] A BILL Amending the Statutes of the United States to provide for copyright registration of designs Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who is a citizen of or domiciled in the United States, or who is a citizen or subject of a foreign State or nation with which the United States shall have established reciprocal copyright relations, and who is the author of any design as hereinafter defined, or the legal representative or assignee of such author, may secure copyright therein upon compliance with the provisions of this act. Within the meaning of this act (a) An author is one who originates a design and in so doing contributes intellectual or artistic effort to the composition thereof. (b) A design is a pattern applied to, or a shape or form of, a manufactured product, and shall include dies, molds, or devices by which such a pattern, shape, or form, may be produced, original in its application to or embod ment in such manufactured product, by reason of an artistic or intellectual effort, and which produces an artistic or ornamental effect or decoration, but shall not include patterns or shapes or forms which have merely a functional or mechanical purpose. SEC. 2. The owner of a design copyright shall have, within all the territory which is under the jurisdiction and control of the United States, for the periods and subject to the limitations hereinafter prescribed, the r ght to exclude others from selling or distributing manufactured products which embody or contain copies of or colorable imitations made by copying the copyrighted des gn or any characteristic original feature thereof, if such manufactured products are in the same class as, or are similar to, the product to which the copyrighted design has been applied or in which it has been embodied. SEC. 3. As prerequisites to copyright protection under this Act the author or his legal representative or his assignee must (1) actually cause the design to be applied to or embodied in the manufactured product; (2) mark such product in the manner specified in section 5 of this act; (3) introduce such product to the public territory under the jurisdiction and control of the control of the United States, by selling it or offering it for sale; and (4) within six calendar months of the time when such manufactured product was first actually 1 so introduced to the public, file an application in the copyright office in the form prescribed under authority of section 20 of this act, and in such application state (a) that he is the author of the design for which he solicits registration of (b) that he is the assignee or legal representative of such author and verily believes the author named in the application to be the originator of such design. Such application shall include the prescribed number of copies of a photograph or other identifying representation of the design as applied to or embodied in the said manufactured product and shall give the date when such manufactured product was so introduced to the public; and copyright shall be secured upon and from the date of such introduction of the manufactured product to the public, subject to the provisions of this act: Provided, however, That such application is filed within six calendar months of any sale in any country of such manufactured product and of any publication not under copyright protection in any country of such design, if such sale or such publication is made by or with the consent of the author, his assignee, or legal representative. SEC. 4. Upon each entry of a claim for copyright in any design made subject matter of copyright by this act, the person recorded as the claimant of copyright shall be entitled to a certificate of registration under the seal of the copyright office, which shall state the name, citizenship, and address of the author of the design and of the owner of the copyright in such design, if other than the author; the name or designation of the class of manufactured product in which the design has been embodied or to which it has been applied; the date when the application for registration was filed in the copyright office; the date when copyright was secured as provided in section 3 of this act; and such marks as to class designation and entry number as shall fully identify the entry of the claim of copyright. Said certificate shall be prima facie evidence of the facts stated therein. A duplicate certificate under the seal of the copyright office shall be supplied to any person requesting the same upon payment of the fee. When a design actually embodied in or applied to one manufactured product is in substantially the same form to be embodied in or applied to a set of manufactured products of the same general character ordinarily on sale together or intended to be used together, a single application for registration and one certificate of registration shall suffice. SEC. 5. It shall be the duty of the owner of a design in which copyright is secured under this act or his licensee to give notice to the public that the design is protected under this act by affixing to the manufactured product the mark Design copyrighted" and by adding thereto with reasonable promptness after registration the number of the registration entry. When the nature of the product will not permit the affixing of these marks in full it shall be sufficient to use the abbreviation "D. copr." or the letter "D" inclosed within a circle, thus with or without the registration number. When such abbreviation or symbol is used, or when the product itself will not permit the affixing of any of these marks, it shall be sufficient and necessary to attach a label or tag to the product or to the package or cover containing the product in which the design is embodied or to which it is applied, containing the name of the manufactured product and plainly marked with the words "Design copyrighted," to which must be added with reasonable promptness after registration, the registration number. In the case of any manufactured product in which the design is repeated such as wall paper or textiles one marking on the manufactured product embodying or containing the design, shall suffice. In any action or suit for infringement by a party failing to comply with the above-stated provisions of this section no recovery shall be adjudged the plaintiff and no injunction shall be granted except on proof that the failure to mark was merely occasional and inadvertent: Provided, however, That there shall be no recovery against an innocent infringer who has been misled by the omission of the notice, and in such case no permanent injunction shall be had unless the copyright owner shall reimburse to the innocent infringer his reasonable outlay innocently incurred, if the court, in its discret on, shall so direct. SEC. 6. Copyright secured under this act shall initially endure for a term of two years from the first sale or offer for sale of the manufactured product to which the design is applied or in which it is embodied. At any time before the expiration of the two-year term an extension of the copyright may be regis tered for a further period of eighteen years to secure a total period of protection of twenty years upon filing an application for such extension and paying the fees prescribed in section 21 of this act. SEC. 7. Every copyright secured under the provisions of this act, or any interest therein, shall be assignable in law by an instrument in writing; and the copyright owner may, in like manner, grant and convey an exclusive right under such copyright for the whole or any part of the United States. Such assignment, grant, or conveyance shall be void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee for a valuable consideration, without notice, unless it is recorded in the copyright office within three calendar months after its execution in the United States, or within six calendar months after its execution without the limits of the United States, or prior to such subsequent purchase or mortgage. If such assignment, grant, or conveyance be acknowledged before any notary public of the several States or Territories or the District of Columbia, or any dependencies of the United States, or before any officer authorized to administer oaths in the United States or its dependencies and the Panama Canal Zone or the Philippine Islands, or any clerk or commissioner of any United States district court, or before a secretary in the Diplomatic Service or a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States authorized by law to administer oaths or perform notarial acts, or before any notary public, judge, or magistrate of any foreign country authorized to administer oaths or perform notarial acts in such country, whose authority shall be proved by the certificate of a secretary in the Diplomatic Service or a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States, the certificate of such acknowledgment or the record thereof in the copyright office, when made, shall be prima facie evidence of the execution and delivery of such assignment, grant, or conveyance. SEC. 8. Infringement shall include unlicensed copying of or colorable imitation by copying the copyrighted design or any characteristic original feature thereof in manufactured products in the same class, or any similar product, for the purpose of sale or public distribution; or selling or publicly distributing or exposing for sale or public distribution any such product embodying or containing such a copy or colorable imitation. If such sale or public distribution or exposure for sale or public distribution is by anyone other than the manufacturer or importer of the copy or colorable imitation, it shall be unlawful only as to goods purchased after actual knowledge that the design is copyrighted: Provided, however, That to obtain the benefit of this exemption a prompt and full disclosure must be made to the copyright owner upon request as to the source and particulars of the purchase of the goods, and the evidence thereof must be given if requested in any suit or action against the manufacturer or importer. SEC. 9. The following shall not be held infringing acts: (a) Repairing manufactured articles protected under this act, or making or selling parts of manufactured articles, whether individually protected or not, for use as repair parts; (b) Making or selling patterns for dressmaking, or making a garment from such a pattern for the individual use of the maker or a member of the family of the maker, or having such a garment made by an individual employee for the use of the employer or a member of the family of the employer; (c) Illustrating designs by pictorial representation, or publicly distributing or exhibiting such illustrations or pictorial representations of designs otherwise than in connection with the advertising or sale or distribution of infringing goods: Provided, however, That to obtain the benefit of the above subsection (b) and of subsection (c) as to articles of apparel, a notice to the effect that the distribution, exhibition, or publication as authorized by said subsection shall not affect the force or validity of any copyright in any design involved, shall be printed on the pattern or its envelope or in the work containing such illustration or pictorial representation by the person who makes such pattern or who publishes such illustration or pictorial representation of any such design; (d) Making any reproduction, copy, use, sale, or public distribution of any design copyrighted under this act in any motion picture, and in whatever form used in connection with the advertisement, distribution, or sale or other disposition of motion pictures. SEC. 10. Anyone who shall infringe any copyrighted design shall be liable(a) To an injunction restraining such infringement; (b) To account for and pay the profits and damages resulting from the infringement, which in the discretion of the court may be trebled. |