China National News reported the most surreal news IP Dragon has read for a long time. The Taiwanese Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) organised a design competition. The purpose was to make the public respect the intellectual property of other people. The Taiwanese student Wu Chih-Wei won the contest with ‘Work – shattered’ a design of a paper plane that was crashing because its tail was broken off. Wu received a medal and 5,000 Taiwanese dollar.
Then somebody recognised the design as being a copy of a design called ‘Truth’, made by Dutch designer Dennis Sibeijn, and Wu had to give everything back. In a way Wu succeeded in the purpose of the contest in winning by copying and then after the revelation crashing, as the paper plane design he copied. And after all the purpose of the contest was to make the public respect the intellectual property of other people, not to respect intellectual property yourself.
See Dennis Sibeijn’s website DAMNENGINE.
Read the China National News report here.
