“The design is mine”: Moldmakers speak out on who owns the IP“The design is mine”: Moldmakers speak out on who owns the IP

When moldmakers come up with a creative, innovative idea that solves a specific challenge for a customer, who owns that design? The customer, say most moldmakers. But that creates other problems for the mold manufacturer.

Whether or not they acknowledge it openly, moldmakers are some of the most innovative, creative people there are when it comes to coming up with solutions for molding challenges. It’s been said that to be a good moldmaker, one has to be able to think backwards and upside down—not an easy thing to do. But thousands of people in mold manufacturing companies throughout Europe and North America do it every day. And thousands of OEMs and molders benefit from this vast storehouse of engineering knowledge that has been gained over the past four decades from these workers.

This knowledge base didn’t come from a textbook in a college of engineering. Many of these people (the older ones, especially) don’t have a college education, and younger folks find their creativity blossoming under the mentorship of esperienced moldmakers who can turn chunks of steel into precision, high-speed “machines” to produce a myriad of plastic parts. But when this knowledge base is used to create mold design innovations, who owns them?

“As you are well aware, the greatest investment made by mold companies in today’s competitive environment is their [mold] design for each product,” says Mike Rice, CPIM, Gruber Tool & Die Inc. (West Bend, WI). “Many ingenious ideas are crafted to improve the design and reduce the overall cost of the tool. Our customers demand that they own the design when complete, which allows them the ability to manufacture replacement components. The issue is that they may then outsource additional molds to cheap overseas manufacturers using that unique design concept we developed, thereby reducing or eliminating design costs and cutting the U.S. moldmaker out of subsequent mold builds.”

But the customer doesn’t just pay for the molds; it also pays for the mold design—and, moldmakers say, generally the mold design is part of the quoted mold price. There are mold companies that break out the cost of the design separately from the mold build and the mold sampling. Many, however, show one price inclusive of stated design, build, and sample. That could be why many OEMs have lost sight of the time it takes a mold designer to get an optimum design.

Because that time was invested, the customer can use the design provided with the mold to purchase replacement parts, or even to buy another mold for the same product from another company, in North America, Europe, or Asia. That cuts the original mold designer/builder out of the picture. So is this fair?

Probably not, but that’s how it’s done. Todd Finley, VP of Commercial Tool & Die Inc. in Comstock, MI, says, “In our case, and probably with most automotive mold shops, the design is included in the mold price and provided with the mold in the format the customer requests. Unless you are clearly stating in the quote terms that the design is not included in the mold price, and the customer agrees to those terms, I think you’ll have a problem.”

Rice asks, “Has anyone in the tooling industry looked at the idea of locking and unlocking designs similar to what is done when downloading software?” He points out that generally one can download software packages for review and testing of the product but it doesn’t allow one to produce the product without a key code to unlock it. “The customer would own the design, which would allow them to view assemblies, components, and manufacture spare parts, but would not allow the entire design to be remanufactured, thereby protecting those tool design concepts developed by inventive American moldmakers,” Rice says. “When we contract to do a design, it belongs to our customers, yet we’ve spent thousands perfecting this mold design. They can take the design to China or India and get a tool made for a fraction of the cost.”

Rice also notes that architectural designs were not protected until 1990. Today, all their designs are copyrighted. You can purchase the design to build one building or one house. “We let the OEMs do what they want because we have no control over our industry,” says Rice. “I think we do. My thought is we like our customers and want our customers to make spare parts. But to make an entire assembly—a second tool—we want them to come back to us for that. To unlock every detail so that anyone can build the tool using our creativity isn’t fair. We have to challenge the people in our industry to find solutions to this.”

What do you think? Who owns the design? At what point are creative elements of a mold property of the moldmaker? Are they ever the moldmaker’s property? Do you have a solution? Or is this even a problem? Tell us what you think. —Clare Goldsberry

Comments from moldmakers
“To us this has been an issue. The way that we have accepted it is that the customer is buying the design when they buy the mold. It is not a sound way, as the engineering is our ‘autograph’ and is what sets us apart from our competition. We saw one of our specific product designs plagiarized by a customer that let [an] offshore [company] have—or at least look at—one of our distinct designs for this particular product, and then came close to trying to copy it. They didn’t get it all right, but it could happen with anything that we do. It would be interesting to see what some of the larger shops may be doing with this type of issue, such as H.S., Commercial, Proper, MSI, Prestige, Moldcraft. They are all into niches where engineering is their life. The AMBA might be able to be the leader again in dealing with a delicate issue that is rampant and highly abused.” —Steve Rotman, president, Ameritech Die & Mold Inc. (Mooresville, NC)

“In our case, and probably with most automotive mold shops, the design is included in the mold price and provided with the mold in the format the customer requests. The only regrets I have are when we do a concept before the order is placed and then don’t get the order. This has only happened a couple of times and really ticks me off, but it is the measured risk we take during the sales cycle. I have also withheld mold designs for payment issues, but once payment is received, the mold designs are released. Unless you are clearly stating in the quote terms, I think you’ll have a problem, at least in the markets we work in.” —Todd Finley, VP, Commercial Tool & Die Inc. (Comstock Park, MI)

“Unless a customer would have us sign a nondisclosure for a specific technology or solution, we would consider it fair game for any mold application. I’m sure we could call it ‘proprietary,’ but it really doesn’t mean anything unless you have it patented. Generally what we sell to customers is our ability to solve problems through the design process, which generally includes suggested modifications to product design and possibly some unique moldmaking solutions. I’ve been involved in building thousands of unique and complex molds, and toured hundreds of mold shops worldwide, and I think truly ground-breaking solutions by mold shops are pretty rare.” —Anonymous