Using a pattern cutter? Who owns your design?

If your pattern cutter is not your employee, a strange thing happens if they modify the design of your pattern (which many will do, as part of helping you get what you want). For sure, the copyright in your pattern is yours.  But the copyright in the pattern cutter’s work belongs to the pattern cutter.  One pattern with two copyright owners?

If your design is a great success, your problems – which should be ending – may be just beginning.  If nothing has been written down, who is to say who owns what?  How will you feel if you wind up with the lawyers having a field day, arguing over which bit of which pattern belongs to whom – and all at your expense?

If someone working for you is your employee, the copyright in the work that they do for you belongs to you – that’s part of the law about them being an employee.  But if you have someone who works for you, but who is not your employee, the copyright in the work that they do belongs to them, not you, even though you paid them to do the work, unless you have a contract that gives you the copyright.

Avoid the stress and the arguments.  Have a simple agreement which deals with who owns the copyright on the original design, and the modifications, and the final design.  My guess is that you want to keep the copyright in all the stages – and you can do that.  This works because you can contract to keep copyright (or to sell it, or to sign it away).

It may sound dead boring to do the paperwork – but if you miss that out, you won’t profit from your work, someone else will.  Let’s not go there!