If you have a good idea, sooner or later it will be copied – designer Luca Nichetto recently highlighted two examples where his works were obviously the basis. In an interview, he tells us why these plagiarisms are symptoms of a diseased system.

Sculptor Andreas Reichlin is the inventor of the Feuerring, the “Ring of Fire”, a functional sculpture which represents an ideal mixture of pleasure and aesthetics. As a work of art, the Feuerring is copyright protected.

Attorney at Law Philip M. Jakober specializes in intellectual property rights, in particular copyright law, trademark law, design law and competition law. He tells us in an interview when a work is plagiarism and how designers can protect themselves.

Where are the limits to plagiarism in design? How can you recognize a design imitation? And how can designers protect their own creative work? We discussed these and other questions in a relaxed round of experts on Clubhouse.

Playing boule at Pulpo, pulling teeth out at e15 and you could easily lose your bearings in the Conmoto kaleidoscope: the stage was set for the Featured Editions at the imm cologne.

Philipp Mainzer goes hunting copycats of the Backenzahn stool.

Open Design has not yet conquered the world of design. But in the not too distant future it could be quite normal to share one’s intellectual property in an entirely new way.

It is well known that copycat versions of design objects cause high economic losses. That said, at universities copying is still considered a practical principle in learning. The upshot of this may be surprising – even pirate copies can sometimes lead to new insights.

Many of us dream of having a design classic in their living room. Yet often such dreams are simply beyond our budgets. Thus, the one or other lover of design flirts with an unlicensed copy of the desired object which he or she can order for little money on the Internet. We are taking stock of the value of creative achievement.

"Copy/Culture" formed one of the focal points at this year's DMY Berlin. Luckily, there was more to see than just replica, namely a great deal of products, prototypes and designs too.

“The market for design objects is small and exclusive. Only a copy makes the original suitable for mass production. In the process, despite the apparent close similarity, essential elements are often lost. Copies such as this offend the original, even if at heart they are a compliment to the original idea.” This is how the two young Swiss designers Sarah Kueng and Lovis Caputo introduce their work “Copy by Kueng-Caputo”.