naval architects & professional conduct

Marconi was about the seventeenth or so wireless inventor. But he had contacts. And he became famous by broadcasting the America's cup to spectators on shore via wireless. It was the first commercial use of radio.

from wiki.

a bit off topic, but it's a boat thread, right?

As I see it, The economy of the post WWII era until recently was an aberration caused by cheap energy and the large amounts of available resources that cheap energy made accessible. We are returning to more usual levels and the middle class as we know it will vanish. Guilds will reappear. It is of the utmost importance that IP can be protected and it will be the owners responsibility or guilds responsibility to establish the data transfer standards and to enforce them. A guild member at every yard would seem to be the obvious means short term. Yard duty for five years would be a form of post apprenticeship prior to being hired as a NA by a firm.

 

The devil is always in the detail, and by that i mean the small print, nowadays as always you have to check and then check again, its just a sign of the times, they call it progress.
Seems to me the more we so called progress the further back we go, i can still remember when deals were completed by a hand shake and you just knew the guy was good for his word, because he had served his time in a shipyard.

 

As a "grey" man working in yard's design offices for a good many years, I have had my ideas, inventions, design and all not only stolen on a regular basis, but even, and more than once, been forced to sign that I had no right to claim for Intellectual Property on any work I was doing and that the yard employing me was the sole owner of these rights.
This is contrary to the IP laws in - I think - all industrial country where any invention or design copyright is to be shared equally between the employer and the employee who has, originally, done this invention or design.

I have even been asked to do an entirely new design by a broker in accordance with the client's desires (no design or concept input from either of them), but was required there again to sign a deny of my intellectual property rights at the sole benefit of this yacht broker, otherwise I would just loose the job!

Some twenty years ago, I even did a concept design based on using an existing hull mold (of a boat we were producing) of a very large sailing yacht, to have the client go "somewhere else" (our yard had actually closed), have an even much larger boat designed but where quite q few features I had been developing were used (both boats have strikingly similar profiles, to cite just that), but then, when I nicely asked this client if I could show on my own website the original drawing and the very well known name of his boat(s), this extremely wealthy client warned me that he would start a court-case against me, would I only mention that I was somehow at the origin of this boat, and forbid me to cite the name of his boat(s) ....!!! The one I did design, since it will not be built but the "following one" has been, is the "missing number" in a line of very famous very large sailing yachts... You guess!

Who cares for the rights of a little "grey" man???

Even recently, after developing a very new design for a catamaran Motor Yacht for some three years (I know it's long, but the details are not significant), the late coming-in interior decorator, who had extremely small input on the very special design concept and layout but to apply materials and design details, did, at the request of our common client and without me being informed, a minor rework on the exterior styling in order to "modernize" it (he called himself this work "flame surfacing") while I had specifically been asked to do a classic looking design, and then had the guts to present this whole design in a competition for the "concept design" of this boat, under his name....and won! To make things even more hurting, the boat is presently being built following this modernized design which the client did prefer to our "classic"...and we are not even cited anymore!!!

I accept competition, but it has to follow some basic rules, ....and they appear to be flawed very often in our industry...

All this not to complain (I am too old for that!), but to say that theft is a practice that can have many faces, is not related to a country in particular (none of the above wee Asian).

Now in Vietnam, where I have been for years, and have a new boat on the drawing board for us to build, many equipment suppliers simply do not reply to my requests for documentation, such is the reputation of the Asean countries and of China. I have then to resource to my French name and address to get any!

How fair is this!!!!

 

Are flame surfacing guy's initials C. B. ?

 

No, Milehog, and sorry I shall not disclose any more, no matter how disgusting I find such practice!

 

But this is 100% fair - creating design for salary, in office time and using office equipment - how an employee can retain IP for this work?? This is clearly IP of company he is working for, or IP of company's customer.

We usually include clause in design agreement that name of designer (company and chief designer) should be mentioned in all articles, marketing materials, etc. for the boat. The IP is not shared with individual employees working on design, this is impossible and absolutely unacceptable.

Again, I think they are right; if final drawings are not developed by You and there is no clause in design agreement, there is no right to claim/present this design as Yours.

This is the reason not to work with interior decorators; usually we state that no drawing can be modified by third parties, such actions will cause cancellation of design agreement.

I think You just need to start working on Your own, using Your own name and not to be a 'grey man' behind some others' drawings. Nobody will promote Your name as Designer excerpt Yourself.

 

Its interesting that nearly all posts have focused on the IP theft aspect but none coment on the fact the designer in question has not meet his legal obligation - the original contract to provide his client a design so a shipyard selected by the same client could construct his vessel.

The designer has refused to provide the normal accepted industry standard of details to the shipyard - a non compliance with the agreement he was paid for therefore failing to meet both his contratural and professional obligation to his client.

The knockon effect of his behaviour has then directly impacted upon the clients business plan, client's build finance arrangement and the shipyards responsibility to the client and client contract.

 

You are 50% right and 50% wrong there, Alik. A design's IP (copyright and all that sort of things) is effectively only the ownership of the Company employing the designer, but an invention (whose IP can be protected by a patent) is a different matter where both the company and the actual inventor have to share equally the IP. Check it out, you will see.

Or you did read too fast, or it's me who do not understand you there. The case I cite is pure blackmailing, it is a take it or leave it (from the person providing the client: I was freelance at that time), and goes with some nice phrases like" if you don't take it, I'll find another one who is hungry". Are you defending that kind of "morality"?

There, you definitely did read "along the diagonal"! I did not say that I have any right in the final design, specially since it is a much bigger one, a sloop instead of a ketch, etc.... and exists under another number than the one I did. The painful event was that this client did forbid me to cite the name of his boat(s) - there are three bearing this name...and that it is his right. He did not forbid me to show to show my work, of course....but then: what is the "value" of showing such a design if it is not presented as done for a high profile customer, and if then nobody can relate it to the very well known boat that has finally been built, and effectively designed by a high profile NA.
I do not, of course, deny that the full design ownership and all IP of this last boat belongs to this very respected person (well: he was handed my work, and a scale model of it, and made good use of it), just that it would have been nice that the client for the boat I designed, and that will never be built (it is the "missing number" in that "family"), for my own promotion, could have shown the name under which she was designed, but the thing is that he did not want a "small" designer name to be in any way associated to his very famous boats. Just not nice of him, not nice at all...and painful to me!

In an ideal world, yes. In the hard world we live in, until you have reached a certain dimension, you just have to bow down.

To "start" working....!!?!? Alik: I am nearing seventy now. I have been building, "drawing" and eventually designing boats - or (many!) parts of - for some forty years. I had my own design office during quite a few years, at that time signing my designs (but at times having to "bow down", as I said), this up to when it became unbearable some 20 years ago (yachting was down at that time). Before and after that, I have been working for others. I quite well know what is this world and this industry, just take my word. In these last years, I essentially offered my services, with my staff, in virtual imagery for the yachting industry. I close down shop now and have closed my website, but keep doing some designs for people I like and of boats I like too: no more passenger or military boats, either motor yachts but sailing boats only. I take care of the (slow) construction of a very nice wood- epoxy schooner here in Vietnam and am designing another one. Don't know if I shall be there to see them sailing one day....?
That's enough for me now.

Sorry gents for this nearly off the topic and somehow personal discussion.

 

It depends on legislation; in some countries it is and in some it is not. Anyway design is not an invention and no IP can be retained by employee.

 

Yes...just as I said!

 

Sounds like the NA profession simply needs to buy insurance.

If both the vessel and yard that did knock offs had frequent fires the practice would stop.

These services are easily arranged in NY or Chicago, for world wide protection.

FF

 

LOL!!!!

You guys are quick learners.

 

Go back and read my first post, He may never have been contracted to provide digital drawings, it may say hardcopy, or "information neccessary to construct a single vessel", only to be provided. Anyway, this is not a question for a forum but a contract laywer...in the NA's home country. If the principal decided not to fork over the extra money for the digital files, which is the usual case, then you don't get them.

 

Go back to my second post and my comment re. the designer first agreed to provide the ACAD dwgs then renegged, after the owners had paid in FULL for the complete package of design incl. software dwg thru to Stability booklet.

I also beg to differ, this forum is precisely to do with all matters about boats including the design and designers and shipyards.

 

Got it in writing? If so sue...if not, don't whine.

One of the first things I learned in a design office of a shipyard is: "If it can't be read, it ain't been said". And that is even true inside our own facility, so you better be sure all your i's are dotted and t's crossed before you bid and/or accept a contract. One of the hardest things I do is write and review TLR's and contract specs. My sponsors yell, *****, and complain when I put specifics in because they think it drives up costs, and I yell, *****, and complain when they take stuff out because I know without a written, verifiable, requirement necessary work won't get done. Many companies have a guy, just like you, who's job is to maximize profit and minimize work by wheedeling and whining; to meet the minimum requirements and spend no more money than necessary, and having other people do the work on their dime is part and parcel of that. And it's not company size or location, it is at the very core of what makes capitalism work, and one of the reasons I hate bailing contractors out.

Edit: If he is a licensed PE, then you have recourse to his board. If you think you have been wronged they will investigate.