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Comment by zelon88 | Hacker News Reader

> Sadly, four months of my professional life were taken away. The case has not been fully resolved.

I'll do the OP a favor and put aside the fact that the two glass domes are completely different, and that you can't put copyright on circles and squares.

That out of the way, it really seems like this is all selfish by Victoria. You saw a design, thought you owned the pattern and likeness to that pattern (you don't), and tried to strong arm the developer into either commissioning the work from you, licensing the design from you, or just throwing it all out and starting over.

They picked "throw it all out and start over" route because who wants to be strong armed by you for no reason, and you're still butthurt by it. Obviously you have no case, or else you would have done something about the 4 months of suffering you claim you had (chose) to go through. The fact that you didn't win a civil case for your losses is pretty damning for your narrative here.

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The two ceilings are different because I fought for them and insisted they be different and not associated with my style. Innovation comes from experimentation, and that needs to be respected. My husband and I invested our lives to reach this visual result, build the company, and create a product. We are immigrants in the first generation who started this company out of nothing. Do you know that banks do not loan money to companies with an artistic nature of business? Years of experimentation, searching for that simple combination of perfect lines, using credit cards, personal loans, remortgaging the house to buy machinery and materials? Why, after all that effort we put into our business, protecting my intellectual property in front of such a giant as Huawei is selfish?

Because the original design, the one you claim was "inspired by" your work was in actuality significantly different than the examples you showed. If it had actually been similar I would agree with you. But it wasn't. I'm sure to you it looked very similar but to the rest of us they were clearly different patterns and designs. I'm sure it must be very tempting to look at a square or a triangle and think that such a pattern must have been "inspired" by the triangles and squares you made, but how else do you build one of these without making little geometric shapes? Maybe selfish was too strong of a word. Maybe pretentious is a better fit, since you obviously drink your own Kool-Aid and aren't just being malicious.

Consider another item, like a car wheel. Do you think that every 5 spoke wheel looks the same? Is every 5 spoke wheel inspired by the very first 5 spoke wheel ever produced? Should the first maker of a 5 spoke wheel get license fees from every 5 spoke wheel that came afterwards? No.

But the surprising thing to me, is you could have taken the glory here. But you threw it in their face. You could have had a piece of art that was publicly "inspired by Victoia Balva". Most artists are flattered to have their work inspire others. They don't usually see it as a missed revenue opportunity like you do. And when they get what they want, they usually go home happy. You didn't do any of that. You tried to force them to commission you, pay you license fees, and when they decided to just stop being inspired by you that also wasn't good enough. The ONLY way to make you happy here would have been to keep the "inspired" design and pay you to use it.

You are wrong. I did not force them to subcontract me. I did not force them to copy my work as well. I don't want my name to be associated with poorly designed glass ceilings. It's not a glory. This is what makes me different from everybody else- the way I think. My skylights are visually very simple geometry. However, I use very complex glass effects that are not obvious but are an important part of the skylight experience. You never saw my work in real. How can you judge it? I don't understand why you are protecting the wrongdoing of large corporations (both Nikken and Huawei) to steal someone's ideas and you point me that I have to take glory out of it? I don't want any glory from the stolen designs. Understood?

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