Research On Diffculities Of Copyright Protection Concerning Works Of Applied Art In China And Some Suggestions

With the rapid development of our society,a larger number of people are prone to pay more attention to the appearance of products in our daily life,while manufacturers also invest more on the design of their products,so they can become attractive to the consumers and establish their competitive advantages.All these changes make it important to do some research on the intermediate object between copyright and patent-works of applied art,which has great value on both practicability and artistry.However,there is still no legislation in China to make works of applied art as a certain object of copyright.And rights of creators of works of applied art have been violated repeatedly for the lack of legislation and judicial difficulties.This article is aimed to make some suggestions to the copyright protection of works of applied art in our country.The main text comprised of four parts.Firstly,this article focuses on some basic theoretical issues about works of applied art,such as its definition,the meaning of its four characters-originality,can be copied,practicability and artistry,the logical differences between works of applied art and certain neighboring concepts,including works of fine art and industrial design,and some fundamental theories.At the second part,by demonstrating the legislation process and collecting some typical cases,this article talks about the weak points of legal protection for works of applied art in China,which including two significant probIems,one is the lack of special legislation,and the other is the messy judgment criteria.The third part takes the U.S.,Germany,France and England as examples to introduce several patterns to protect works of applied art in western countries,and their different approaches to test the originality of works at practice.Finally,relying on the realistic condition and legislative system of our country,as well as the experience of western countries' legislation and judicial practice,this article thinks it important to make works of applied art an independent object which can be protected by copyright law,while the dual protection and a unified standard of originality should be applied at practice.