According to Wikipedia, magic is a performing art that entertains an audience by creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats, using purely natural means.
The history of magic tricks and performances dates back to early Egyptians, with many of them still a mystery today. These tricks have come a long way in history with continous innovation, which make them as elusive today as they well centuries back to a comman man like me. All of us know that magic tricks involve use of cleverly crafted instruments and extensive pratice to use them, so there has always been a debate on how to protect these tricks from theft.
It is understandable that while novices or performers in the arena of magic support complete secrecy, the creators of the tricks want to expose them for popularity. So, the question is should a magic trick – methods or instruments be patented/copyrighted or kept a trade secret? A deeper look at the history of IP in magic reveals that Burling Hull (a renowned magician) patented Svengali Card Deck in 1909. He also copyrighted his various texts. Magician Horace Goldin got a patent (US 1,458,575) in the year 1923 for ‘Sawing a woman in half’ device. Since then there have been numerous patents that were filed for device and methods used in magic tricks. USPTO even has a class dedicated to Amusement Device (472) and various subclasses such as illusion or stage device (472/57).
Of course, with patents comes infringements and law suits. Horace Goldin was involved in many legal actions related to the Sawing a woman in half illusion, including one in 1922 against the makers of a film that exposed the method and one in 1938 against the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for exposing the secret in an advertisement for cigarettes. The case was eventually dismissed by a federal court and Goldin then gave up on patenting his methods.
A most recent case of Patent Infringement was between Yigal Mesika and Sean Bogunia. Yigal Mesika patented a cap and spooling device (U.S. Patent No. 7,311,609) and used it in his Spider Pen product. Mesika claimed that Sean Bogunia incorporated Mesika’s patented design into his new iThread, Deck TR, and iThread X products without Mesika’s knowledge or consent.
Fortunately for Mesika (unlike H. Goldin) the case for settled in his favor. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Sean Bogunia will no longer create his iThread, Deck TR, and iThreadX products in their current configuration. Bogunia also agreed that for future sales of products that use Mesika’s design, if any, he will pay Yigal Mesika an agreed upon royalty payment for each such use and acknowledge on the packaging for any such product that it incorporates Mesika’s patent design. This case stands as a significant milestone in that it is the first case to ever prevent imitation of a magician’s device for performing tricks.
Mesika now states: “I look forward to focusing on my passions – performing magic and crafting the very finest products imaginable, in order to continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in magic.”
Considering Mesika’s success in protecting his invention, magicians will certainly look upon his case in the future as a model for navigating the convoluted field of intellectual property law to protect their magic devices from patent infringement. Also, I look forward to understanding such tricks and appreciate such innovations as a comman man!
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