Rights, Rights of Third Parties, Quality Management
A design factor just for safety? Doesn’t sound very enticing or creative but security aspects effect all levels and all stages of the project and therefore deserve special recognition.
Closely related to the concept of product safety, is the concept of quality. If the quality is adequately managed or secured, risks, defects and hazards are eliminated or mitigated in the form of product instructions.
So who is responsible for the quality?
How would you describe a safe product? Try first to describe an unsafe product. Imagine every aspect that could go wrong and then systematically analyse the reasons why this could have failed.
A product must not just be safe on a physical level, but a legal level too. A successful brand or product will want to protect its advantage over the competition, for example, from imitators. What unique features can be protected? A design feature or a complete design? Is the current design or design feature a breach of an existing protected design?
It is also important to consider where there could be a breach of third party rights. The registered property rights such as patents, designs and trade mark must always be thoroughly searched - a job for the patent and trademark attorney. Today more than ever the copyright must be considered in great detail, not only because it is difficult to research and holds incredibly long, an incredibly long 70 years after the patent owner’s death.
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-> More information on the methodology behind the 24 design factors
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