IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 19

When working at the lightning-fast pace of the digital age, knowing how and with whom to collaborate—and how to protect your resultant intellectual property—separates the innovators from the imitators
By

Jennifer Krichels Gorsche

The biggest innovations of the 21st century rarely have only one name on them— think of the cross-disciplinary teamwork that goes into perfecting the iPhone, hybrid car technology, or new advances in cancer treatment. And the interior design community has been at the forefront of this collaborative trend, with practitioners crossing into related fields, such as furniture or fashion, as well as more unexpected areas, like medicine and manufacturing systems. On the flip side, companies with capabilities in only one area—say, glass fabrication or software engineering—are discovering the benefits of the right collaboration with the right designer to help expand their purview. More and more, designers are forming alliances with one another and with diverse companies and institutions to push their research and creative capabilities into the future. Thanks to digitaldesign software and manufacturing technology that abets cross-disciplinary alliances, idea-sharing, inspiration, and the physical act of making things is happening faster than ever before. But with such partnerships comes the responsibility to be educated about the collaborative process, especially when it comes to ownership and intellectual property. On that front, our industry seems to be playing a bit of catch-up. “Designers don’t know much about intellectual property,” says LeAnn Shelton, AIA, general counsel for Rockwell Group. “You don’t learn about this topic in school.” Shelton is a rare hybrid: an attorney-architect. She began her career as a lawyer specializing in land use and real-estate litigation after graduating from Columbia Law School. Returning to the university’s architecture school a few years later, she then practiced design for 15 years before merging her two vocations. At Rockwell, Shelton teaches a popular educational session titled “Knock it off! Really! Don’t do that!” that focuses on, she says, “the fine line between inspiration and infringement in interior design.” Shelton has found that few colleagues feel comfortable defining terms like copyright and intellectual property. But like any firm doing a breadth of work, Rockwell prioritizes schooling its team on such issues. “Interior designers deal with this topic a lot because they’re creating original products for their spaces,” Shelton explains. “You have to be very sensitive to where your product is being made, how it’s being made, and who’s fabricating it.” And who might be copying it for their own benefit. Caution is always the best protection, but even a firm as large as Rockwell has seen designs it vetted with a manufacturer show up unlicensed in that company’s catalog. And the larger the firm, the tighter the control it must maintain over its name. If a piece will be used across multiple restaurants or boutiques, ensuring consistent quality is imperative. “It’s crucial for firms to make sure their brand is put out in the best way,” says Shelton.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012