You could apply for a Design Patent, which basically claims the "look" of a product.
These tend to be as ridiculously easy to circumvent as they are to obtain. If you have a bunch of money, you can get a bunch of Design Patents on virtually anything and then brag about how many patents you have. You can make VERY small changes to the look of something with a Design Patent and get around it.
I just searched the US Patent Office database for the string "billiards cue" in any field. Surprisingly, there were only 28 patents, all of which were utility patents, which are the good kind of patents. Utility patents are much more difficult to obtain because you have to defend specific geometry and usefulness to a patent examiner who really wants to deny a new patent. Seems they might actually be on quotas. They act like it.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But if the cue in question were marketed as a Chudy, that would be criminal.
Since I see no Design Patents on cues, I suspect everyone has realized the futility of going this route.
So copy away!
P.S. One of the utility patents was on some kind of an Illuminating Cue. I didn't read the patent, but it seems your kid could play with it as a light sabre. About 90% of utility patents are on worthless crap you wouldn't want to copy anyway, and the Illuminating Cue appears to fall into that category.
All this has been discussed ad infinitum here and on other pool forums for 15 years now.
The basic sentiment is that if a cue maker or case maker or widget maker has a "signature" thing that they do then it should be kind of off limits for other makers to do it. Of course the people who steadfastly believe this don't apply justice equally when someone offends.
In other words some people get a free pass to sell or promote or make copies, tributes, inspired pieces, etc.... with or without giving credit to the source, while others are burned at the stake for the same thing.
No one cares about the actual legality because there is a moral pedestal to climb on. So the argument becomes, "who cares if it's legal, that doesn't mean you should do it." - So basically you're screwed in the eyes of these design-theft moralists if you break the law and you're screwed if you follow the law.
Personally I think that there should be some sort of copyright that can be applied to cues. Thomas Wayne successfully had copies of his cues pulled from the shelves but I don't know if that was a courtesy thing or whether he claimed infringement.
But anyway, this horse has been beat to death so many times and reincarnated that it's really old news by now.
It's funny you know. In all the books we tell people that to be successful you should copy what successful people do until you learn it inside and out. But when it comes to cues then god forbid someone should dare to try something that someone somewhere else did. There is a line between exploring a technique and simply snagging designs and cue makers know when they have crossed it. Let them worry about it.
My take on this is if you don't want your designs to ever be copied in any way then don't show them off. Don't have a website, beg your customers to keep their cues off the web and simply do your best to withhold the food for thought that drives people to take what you have done and remix it their way.
Once upon a time I told the ACA that they were responsible for the copies of their cues being made in China. What??? Blasphemy.
No, simply access.
In the 80s and early 90s jsut about the only designs being knocked off regularly were the McDermotts and Meuccis. Before that it was Palmers and Paradise cues.
Why?
Very simple, those were the easiest cues to get nice detailed catalogs of.
In the 90s all the cue makers started competing to see who could make the nicest brochures. As a result plenty of literature showing off cue designs came into being, a Cue Calendar, The Billiard Encyclopedia, The Blue Book of cues, and of course by the end of the 90s websites.
So the cue factories in China had plenty of great new designs to choose from. And they did. Only in the last decade have they started to do their own designs but still with a lot of influence from cues past.
Anyway, dead horse, progress, life. I already lost my millions due to people "stealing" my designs. I am over it.
Why are single-sided veneers a rip-off unless two-sided veneers are also in which case there are a whole bunch of rip-off artists in the cue making world. Is the first guy to use the Hoppe ring, full splice, a stainless steel joint, irish linen wrap, radial pin, notched diamond inlays, etc. the only guy who should be allowed to do so?
Please say ten hail marys and go pay your royalties now.
