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Eric,

This is a very broad topic.  I would be very interested in learning what you have in mind when you say "software, hardware and curricula"? 

As an industrial designer I spent my early years doing product design.  Patents were often a part of the design goal.  Unfortunately often the effort was just one of making it "different enough" to warrant a new patent without being truly unique.  It was a frustrating process.  In the long run the manufacturer who got the product out first made the money, with or without a patent.

In our small world of museums and science centers I don't think the incentives for protecting IP are as strong.  At least for exhibits (hardware?) I enjoy the freedom to gleam from, and try and improve on, what has been created before.  We all feed off of each other and things are the better for it.  Imagine if the first Bernoulli blower or light table had exclusive claims?  Or if the Exploratorium cookbooks had never been published?

When I work with clients who want "one of those" I explain that I cannot just copy the existing design they saw, but that the basic concepts are well understood and they will need to have a new cabinet or package designed for it.  I prefer designing things that are completely new, but it is also a very realistic budgetary-model to work from a set of known concepts.

I think there are probably more concerns with other types of unique IP such as graphics, names, maybe even web sites.  And in most markets there is no real direct competition. The exceptions might be the handful of large metropolitan cities with multiple museums competing for the same audience.

I think there may be other areas to discuss like what does it mean to host licensed exhibits such as Curious George or Clifford.  Or how they need to be careful with using registered trademarks.  A few years back someone told me they got heck from the folks who sell Stomp Rockets when they used that name for the exhibit.  

I'll stop here but this certainly could be an interesting topic for discussion. I'm sure my views on it are limited by my exhibit world orientation and I would love to hear more about how folks in other areas feel about this.

Erich Rose

Erich Rose Design
807 The Living End
Austin, TX 78746
512-626-9930; [log in to unmask]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erichrose/




On Jan 3, 2013, at 4:28 PM, Eric Siegel wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> but we were having a discussion this afternoon about conceptions and misconceptions of intellectual property in the museum business, and it struck me that this might be a good ASTC session to propose  Basically I would propose to discuss different approaches to sharing/protecting IP in software, hardware, and curricula.  This is becoming a bigger issue for us as we get more into digital products.   Interested in how consultants and designers approach this as well as museum staffers.
> 
> Does this ring a bell with anyone?   If so, please contact me offlist ASAP
> 
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Eric
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