John,

If I may..

Let's say you are a potter. In the first case you make pots and sell them to a company based on an agreement you have with them. Once sold to them they can do anything they'd like with them - including selling them to your competitor or perhaps better for the example, shipping them to Taiwan where they are mass-reproduced. Do you retain the intellectual rights to the original design?

On the other hand, let's say you make pots and sell them to a company in order that they might place the pottery in their lobby. What happens in this case should they manufacture less expensive Taiwanese 'knockoffs' so they can duplicate the company 'look' for all their other branch offices?

Seems to me that your advice about getting a written agreement is the only way to go. <g>

IOW, how do you retroactively divine 'intent'?


>Well, you example is a better one since that is essentially what is happening here.
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>I think if the contractor is an indepdent contractor, you buy the furniture, but you don't buy the design. Therefore, I would agree that the company probably could not in effect rip off the guys design.
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>This is of course, presuming the design is the carpenters. There are designs that are just out there - in the public domain. What if he employed those designs? What is to stop the company then?
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>< JVP >
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>>John,
>>
>>Thanks for a most clear and helpful summarization of the law.
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>>On your chair example, I would carry it a step[ further and ask you the following question.
>>
>>I am a carpenter and I am asked to design and build a chair for my customer. I do that. They have the right to resell the chair to someone else (once they sell the chair of course they can no longer sit in it), but do they have the right to construct more chairs based on my design and sell those without my premission (and continue to use the one they bought from me)?