In 1990, Congress passed the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act which explicitly provides copyright protection to original designs of architecture in virtually any form, including architectural plans, drawings and even buildings themselves. 

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Either you, or your company, has the exclusive right to protect your architectural works.

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iCA has experience filing for federal copyright protection for architectural works and have successfully received registrations.  We are versed in the requirements for time of creation, originality and

non-funcationality, joint authorship, work-made-for-hire, and transfer of ownership. 

 

Further, if you feel your works have been infringed upon, we can help you with copying-in-fact and substantial similarity claims.

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While we do not provide specific legal advice as to any situation, we recommend our clients to register their plans at the end of design development and just before construction documents  At this point in the process, there is normally a floor plan and elevation, which is needed for the architectural copyright registration. This will protect the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of space, which are usually well fixed at the end of the design development phase.

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The first step in hiring us is to complete our Contact Form, and one of our Paralegals will be in touch with you to set up a phone conference to discuss your needs.