teamLab, Sketch Town, 2014-
Source: teamLab Website
'Art' is subject to protection under 'copyright'. This understanding is certainly correct. However, now more than ever before, contemporary artworks include many different kinds of work. For example, let us take a look at "Sketch Town" by a Japanese art collective, teamLab. Some of you may have actually experienced this work.
TeamLab has been granted a patent for an invention called the "Drawing Image Display System"(Japan Patent No. 5848486). Once the application is filed and examined at the Patent Office and the patent is granted, the idea of such invention can be monopolized by the patent owner within the scope described in the Claims on the Patent Specification.
Claim 1 of the "Drawing Image Display System" is as follows. Although the terms are difficult to comprehend, it will be easier to understand if you read it together with the figures below.
[Claim 1]
An image capturing device (1) for scanning the physical medium on which the object is drawn and then capturing the image data.
A control device (2) for generating an object image from the image data.
An image display system comprising a display device (3) for displaying the object image.
The control device (2).
An image input unit (10) for acquiring the image data from the image capturing device.
An image analysis unit (11) for analyzing the image data.
A program reading unit (13) for reading one or more operation programs from the operation program database (12) based on the analysis result of the image analysis unit (11).
A drawing processing unit (14) for extracting an area where the object is drawn from the image data and generating the object image.
An object image control unit (15) for controlling the object image based on the operation program read by the program reading unit (13).
An image display system comprising: an image output unit (16) for outputting the object image controlled by the object image control unit (15) to the display device (3).
So what is the point of patenting for a work of art?
Copyright law protects creative "expressions" rather than "ideas". A single idea can generate many expressions, and monopolizing an abstract idea for a specific person is not in line with the purpose of copyright law, which aims to generate a diversity of expressions and contribute towards cultural development.
However, in contemporary arts, there is great deal of emphasis on concepts and ideas. As a result, it can be said that copyright alone can no longer sufficiently cover the scope of what artists really want to protect.
A patent is truly a system to protect technical ideas, and as long as it is within the scope of the claims, it is subject to monopoly, even if specific designs, shapes or colors (expressions under copyright law) are different from the original work.
"Sketch Town" is an interactive work in which participants draw pictures and project them onto a display, so it is advisable that teamLab chose to patent it because of the peculiarity of not having a specific design fixed in place.
Even in contemporary arts, there is room for patents if an art is technically ingenious.
By the way, when you apply for a patent, you need to describe the background information on a problem in terms of existing technologies, and the invention provided by the patent that will resolve the problem.
The problem described in the patent is "...the conventional image processing apparatus displays image data taken from a document as a still image on a display, and is not interesting." This is an interesting description of the problem, and it is worth reading!