technical tuesday: A Bad Marketing Plan by Page Kelly Piccolo

by | Aug 22, 2017 | technical tuesday

*** I’m copying this in full here as it’s a very important read.  Find the original here. Such bullying in our clay community isn’t cool. Also there is a thread on Facebook you can contribute to.

*** You can also support Page Kelly Piccolo fighting back to keep her right to use this decal technique here. Know that this doesn’t only affect Page, it affects many artists who don’t have the financial means to fight back.

“There have been a lot of things going on in the world lately, and my problems seem quite small in comparison. However, I am being faced with some troubling challenges to the functional art that I create, potentially being forced to change how I decorate my work entirely. It’s not an organic evolution, but a jarring rip from my current path.

In mid-March I did a blog post and a Periscope broadcast about the process I was taught in 2007 and have used extensively in my work in the last four years. I was contacted via email by a woman who claimed that I was infringing on her patent by describing this process and telling my viewers and readers what products I used. This is the email I received (my ellipses):

“… I am contacting you because by promoting Bel decal paper in your periscope and online you are inadvertently encouraging infringement of my patent.

# US7622237

I am sure you were unaware that there is a patent on the laser decal process and that you would not intentionally  infringe.

Bel decal is no longer including these infringing  instructions in with their paper packs or online.

There are several ways we can rectify this issue.  If you would like you can purchase decal paper from Fired-On Images and if you choose to promote any paper at all you mention just our product.  Or if you are happy buying Bel decal paper and do not want to change over you can just remove references to Bel paper online and in your teaching and instead if you are mentioning  any source info just say Fired-On Images Transfer paper as the one and only source.  That way you will not be infringing and all will be well.

I also have a website which we are currently updating which will include a section promoting  artists the laser decal process  with links to their websites and stores…which I am happy to include you in.

If you would like a free sample of our product just send you address and I’ll be happy to send a sample pack.

I look forward to hearing from you…”

As you might imagine, I was quite astonished. I couldn’t imagine anyone (especially a potter) who would patent a process that tens if not hundreds of people use. After a bit of research, I discovered that, yes, indeed, she had a patent on the process. You can read it in full here: https://www.google.com/patents/US7622237 or here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7622237.PN.&OS=PN/7622237&RS=PN/7622237

This was the 3rd email:

“Please take instructions for laser toner decals off your blog.  This is the last time I will warn you.  If you look at Bel’s website you will see what they are allowed to say (after we settled our suit with them) No references to using iron oxide.   I am the patented inventor of this process and sell products based on this invention. The fact that you use this process in your work makes you a direct infringer.  I  am not an ass and would not interfere with your own ability to sell your work. My objection is to posting instructions which encourages others to infringe.  I do not want to have to spend money to sue you but if you leave me no choice.. I will get my lawyer involved.

If you want you can contact Bel and ask them about this.

If you do not think I am serious check this out.

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2016cv10791/179911”

It was clear to me that this person was attempting to coerce me into buying, using, and endorsing her product. It is quite a lot more expensive, and as a working potter, I find it a better business model to keep my expenses as low as possible. It was so important to her that she not have to compete in the marketplace that she patented the process and then sued her competitor, an artist that uses decals in his work, and the American Ceramic Society (the publishers of Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated) to force them to use her product and compensate her for infringing on this patent. I am unaware of what settlement came about due to this suit, though I do know that the source of waterslide decal paper that I use was forced to eliminate all instructions or implication of use on ceramics from their website and product. You can read the document she filed here: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/11967428?fref=gc

I hired an attorney as it became obvious that she was stalking my blog, she had followed me on Periscope and she is also a member of many ceramics community forums on social media. At the behest of my attorney, I have withdrawn my blog post outlining the process and products that I use to create my decals along with the Periscope broadcast that I had also posted to my YouTube channel.

This person claims to have invented the process, and I’m sure as you can imagine, I find this utterly untrue. You will find at the bottom of this post a list of artists and reference materials that used/described the process before she patented it. Why the defendants in the lawsuit chose to not prove or pursue a counter action, I do not know.

I am limited now in how to proceed with the imagery in my work. As my attorney put it I have four options:

  1. Endorse the patent holder’s product and feel free to use “her” method on my web site;

  2. Comply with the patent holder’s demands and remove the offending information (which according to her attorney not only includes the paper, but the terms related to the material, the color of the decal once fired, and the printing process);

  3. Face a patent infringement case in federal court…maybe $15K minimum…her patent expires in 7 years – and then “her” method is in the public domain; or;

  4. Carefully restructure your web page to include only “her” patent information. That’s public information.

As perhaps you can imagine my responses are thus:

  1. Ol’ Frosty the Snowman will be skating in Hell before I endorse her;

  2. Yeah, okay, if I have to….

  3. I would LOVE to take this woman to court to break her patent and prove she did not invent the process, but how the heck to I come up with $15-25K??

  4. This post.

I am making the assumption that I am not the only potter this person has contacted with the threat of a lawsuit to force them to buy her product so that she will “license” them to use her process. I’m not a big fan of bullies, and I hope that anyone that has been contacted by her will know that according to her patent, “(s)tandard commercially available film coated water slide decal paper” will do.

I can’t tell you what brand of paper I use, but I think you can figure out who I don’t. Instead of making a positive contribution to the ceramic community, instead of promoting her product in a positive way, showing it to be better or easier or in some way positively different from other similar products, she chooses to join ceramic communities for what appears to be the purpose of catching people in the act of infringing on her patent, even though most makers don’t even know it exists. I think this is a poor way to encourage people to use a product.

Artists/Resources

Katherine Ross, “Prophylaxis/Hygene,” 1999, http://katherineross-artist.com/section/338316-Prophylaxis-Hygiene-1999.html

Paul Scott, “Ceramics and Print, second edition,” 2002, pgs 84-111, pgs 128 & 130

Paul Andrew Wandless, “Image Transfer on Clay,” 2006, various dated works, explanation of process pgs 40-41

Clay Arts forum thread, 2003, http://www.potters.org/subject61809.htm

These are the resources I was able to come up with in less than two hours of research with a little help from my friends. They all show that the now-patented process actually existed well before she filed her patent application.The person that I learned about this process from learned it in grad school at Indiana University in 2003-2004. You will not convince me this woman invented the process in 2005. I will add more resources as I discover them.” – Page Kelly Piccolo

 

call for entry: Me, Myself and I

by | Aug 15, 2017 | call for entry

Me, Myself, and I
Clay Art Center
40 Beech Street
Port Chester, NY 10573

APPLY TO THIS CALL
Entry Deadline: 9/22/17
Days remaining to deadline: 38

REQUIREMENTS:

Media
Images – Minimum: 1, Maximum: 3
Total Media – Minimum: 1, Maximum: 3

Entry Fee (I: Clay Art Center National Juried Exhibition): $25.00

Description

The 2018 gallery year will feature 4 Degrees of Separation, a series of four exhibitions featuring artists whose works examine the intricacies of maneuvering life, lifestyles and living within a global society with its political and social ramifications. The first exhibition is titled Me, Myself and I and will be followed by THEM, US  and ALL. CAC is committed to exhibiting emerging, mid-career, and established artists, as it seeks to become a platform for the field to express potent ideas and  relevant topics of our time.

Me, Myself and I will be the opening exhibition of the Clay Art Center’s gallery and will start the year’s themed exhibitions. This open juried show invites artists to submit vessel based work that explore issues surrounding identity. Artists are asked to think about such passionate issues such as who we are and how do we see ourselves within the context of society, family, relationships, and most importantly within our own skin? What role does culture, lineage, inheritance, and other characteristics of personality and sub-personalities play in how we see ourselves and define who we are?

This exhibit seeks submissions from artists who use their vessel-based art to explore concepts around self, experiences, and the triumphs and challenges faced either in the daily tasks of living or one’s place in society. This national call for entries will be juried by Kathy King, a renowned artist and educator whose own work reflects the very core theme of the show. As guest juror, she has invited kindred artists Mark Burns, Cheyenne Rudolph, Beth Lo, and Matt Nolen who also use their art to reflect identity and self-awareness.

Juror, Kathy King is currently a studio artist in the Boston area and is an Instructor and the Director of Education at the Ceramics Program – Office for the Arts at Harvard in Allston, MA and is a Visiting Faculty at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She has given workshops and lectures at over fifty colleges, schools and art centers throughout the USA.

“I hope to find work that truly expresses and shares the individuality of the artist. In contemporary ceramics, we have such a long history to reference the individual with a myriad of processes; though technique and design is the building block to many works – concept is what communicates with the viewer. I’ll be looking for strong narratives that look inward and trust what they see.” –Kathy King

call for entry: “The Art of the Drink” Drinking and Beverage Storage Container Exhibit

by | Aug 14, 2017 | call for entry

Media: Ceramic, glass, metal, wood, mixed media
Entry Fee: $25 for 3 images
Butler Art Center is hosting an exhibit honoring the drinking vessel and the containers used to store all things spirited. This exhibit is paired with a beer label design show and the closing reception will host a beer tasting by Butler Brew Works, Cellar Brew Works and Reclamation Brewery.

Media:
Drinking and storage vessels (cups, mugs, yunomis, tankards, tumblers, goblets, tea bowls, growlers, flasks, jugs, etc.) must be made from all food safe materials. All exhibited work must be for sale. Pieces must be available for the duration of the exhibition.

Specifications:
The application is open to all artists 18 years and older. An artist may submit 1-3 original works, which have been completed in the last two years. Works not gallery-ready or not exhibiting good craftsmanship, may be omitted from the exhibit. Accepted works that differ significantly from the entry images will be disqualified from the exhibition.

Juror: Didem Mert

Didem Mert was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH. She received her BFA in Ceramics from Northern Kentucky University in 2014. Mert has exhibited nationally in places such as Companion Gallery, Charlie Cummings Gallery, AKAR, The Erie Art Museum and over forty other venues. Her work was published in Ceramics Monthly’s 2014 Undergraduate Showcase. She was featured on the cover of Pottery Making Illustrated’s January/February 2016 issue. Mert was also featured on Architectural Digest’s 10 Ceramic Artists Giving Pottery A Modern Update. Didem is currently attending Edinboro University’s MFA program.

Awards:
All accepted entries will be eligible for “Best in Show,” “People’s Choice” and sponsor purchase awards. Artists need not be present to win. The winners will receive monetary rewards totaling up to $250. “Best in Show” will be determined through the jurors and announced during the closing night festivities. The voting for the “People’s Choice” will continue through the duration of the exhibition and be announced at the end of the show.

Closing Reception:
Exhibition opens October 11, 2017. A closing reception/beer tasting event will be held November 3, 7-9. All artists are invited to participate in the festivities.

Submission deadline : August 25, 2017
Submission payment must be made here (insert link to payment here) After registration is compete, email the following information to [email protected]

Download the entry form here.