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Claudia Rebola
Summary Sentence: On the Witness Stand for Design
Full Summary: Woodring will discuss the question: "How close is too close?"
Woodring PosterCooper C. Woodring, FIDSA, has been on a decade long crusade to convince the business world that it is less costly and less risky to retain a good industrial designer to create your own award winning product design, than it is to knockoff the market leader's design. His service as an Expert Witness in design patent litigation has made corporations realize the huge costs of copying industrial designs. In one recent case, where Cooper served as the plaintiff's Expert Witness, over 50 million dollars changed hands over the appearance of one copied consumer product design.
Cooper also makes clear, in understandable language, the big copying question: "How close is too close?" He explains the current standards that Federal Courts use to measure design infringement, which stem from an 1871 United States Supreme Court case titled "Gorham v. White". Cooper will share his personal experiences on the witness stand for design, making his story-telling alive with surprises, analogies and human interest.
About Cooper...
Cooper C. Woodring, FIDSA, is a past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and past Manager of Product Design for 25 billion dollar JCPenny Co.. He has served as an Expert Witness in dozens of design patent cases involving the designs of products from cell phones to toilet paper to dog food to internal combustion engines to Herman Miller's Charles Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.
