Last week I posted about the first article in a three-part series on the Jet Set Modern website. The second contributor to the article "Is It Real?" is William F. Berg of
Modern Wood Works in Kenner, Louisiana. His company manufactures a line of shelving based on the design of Eames shelving units. (First post:
According to a Collector)
Berg clarifies the laws concerning inventions and designs, explaining two types patents:
- Utility patents - Protect inventors for 20 years. Charles Eames received a utility patent in 1942 for "A Method of Laminating Articles," which included the curved plywood chair.
- Design patents - Keeps a designer from being copied for 14 years. Eames received one of these in 1948 for the LCW (Lounge Chair Wood).
Once these patents expire, they can not be renewed. At that point, it is entirely legal for any manufacturer to use the design and put his own label on the resulting product.
Trademarks, which include words, names or logos that identify a product, can be renewed. For example, Knoll, Inc. has exclusive rights to the word Knoll when applied to furniture. Knoll also has the rights to the term Barcelona. Once the patent on a design expires and it enters the public domain, anyone can manufacture the item but cannot call it by its trademark name. Hence, all the inventive names given to Barcelona chair look-alikes, such as "The Pamplona," which is a regular in Craigslist ads.
Berg answers the accusation that manufacturing or buying a reproduction is unethical or immoral by pointing out that most Americans feel fine about buying generic drugs. Most have made copies on machines that were not made by Xerox, and most have talked on telephones not tied by pedigree to Alexander Graham Bell. Looking at it that way, maybe we are cherry-picking our causes about which to be righteously indignant.
Berg considers the terms knock-off, reproduction and re-issue (both "authorized" and "unauthorized") to be little more than sales ploys to discredit legitimate competitors who are operating completely within the scope of patent and trademark laws. He says that if a company is honest, makes a good product true to the original design that meets your needs and makes it at a fair price, buy it. He also reminds the reader that the original goal of the modern design movement was to make well-designed products affordable to the masses.
So...can you tell these apart without looking a my sources? One is a vintage Eames CSU, one is by Matt Blatt, and one is by Vitra.
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The "authorized" version, 2011
vitra.com |
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Replica by Matt Blatt
mattblatt.com.au |
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The vintage Eames piece
treadwaygallery.com |
Update: 4-19-2014 - The article that was originally on the Jet Set Modern site has been deleted, so I have removed the dead links from this post.
