Assignment: Soda Skirts and Newborn Burps
A) Tyra is a fashion design student. She took a college course called "Fashion for Safety," where students worked in teams to develop clothing designs that improve the wearer's safety.
Tyra's team considered how clothing could help wearers hide from attackers. Their professor suggested the students create an apparel item that appears normal but, with manipulation, converts into a camouflage design. The student team designed a reversible sweater where one side had an abstract camouflage pattern using colors typically found in urban settings. At the semester's end, the team posted the sweater's design specifications to the Internet.
After the semester's end, Tyra continued thinking about camouflage clothing and how a person could "hide" in urban settings. This prompted Tyra to develop a skirt that can convert into a fake vending machine. She calls it the "Vending Machine Skirt."
For the vending machine depicted on the skirt, Tyra initially hand-drew an image of a vending machine. However, when she tested the skirt in public, she found that her drawings undermined the camouflage effect and drew unwanted attention from passers-by. Therefore, she asked her friend Miss Jay, an amateur photographer, to photograph a specific Coca-Cola vending machine Tyra found on a public street.
To maximize its camouflage capacity, Tyra gave Miss Jay very specific instructions about how and when to take the photo. Tyra created the final skirt version using the photo taken by Miss Jay. Her subsequent public tests of the photo-based design indicated that the photo worked better as camouflage than her hand-drawn image.
Discuss Tyra's possible patent, copyright and trademark protection (if any) for the Vending Machine Skirt. Note: clothing design isn't copyrightable, but fabric print designs may be. Also, discuss any potential copyright or trademark risks that Tyra may face commercializing the Vending Machine Skirt. Finally, describe and justify your top three recommendations for steps Tyra should take to improve her copyright/trademark/patent protection for the Vending Machine Skirt.
B) Music stars Beyonce and Jay-Z named their newborn daughter Blue Ivy and then rushed to trademark the name, because they planned to use it in commerce. Their application was partially denied because a wedding planner in Massachusetts was already using "Blue Ivy" as the name of her business. Is this the correct outcome? Should people have priority over what would surely have been a much larger, more profitable use of this name? What does it mean to copyright a name? After all, a "rose by any other name would still be [Blue Ivy]."
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.