Methods for securing authors’ rights to their works of art: copyright v. industrial design

Abstract

The place of design in the intellectual property law system under the Armenian legislation is not defined and is broader than in the international intellectual property protection practice. In practice, Armenian authors protect their intellectual property in this or that way. Some authors protect the design by copyright, others by industrial design. There are several practical differences that will be examined in this Paper, which may have influence on authors’ choice of protection type. For example, registering the industrial design is more costly, but it provides a certificate of intellectual property ownership. Design protected by copyright cannot be registered, but it provides protection from the moment of creation. As there is a practice to protect design, particularly jewellery design, in both ways, considering that these two types of protection provide different conditions for the authors, the thesis problem appears. The thesis question is the following: which type of intellectual property protection is more effective for jewellery design?