September 12, 2008

Woman sues over lamp bearing her name

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 10:23 am

This is the hanging lamp Bettine, named after Dutch table tennis diva Bettine Vriesekoop and made of 315 ping pong balls. It was created by Diaz Kleefstra and is being sold by him, and those of you who religiously follow design blogs will yell “old hat!” The lamp’s been out for a while.

What’s new is that Vriesekoop is suing Kleefstra for the use of her famous name. “It’s not about the money,” she tells Algemeen Dagblad. Oh, it’s so about the money, her lawyer says. Looks like they’re in the same newspaper but not on the same page. It’ll be interesting to see what intellectual property right the lawyer will claim, but as happens with so many of these cases it will probably all end in arbitration and settlement. In the meantime Kleefstra has removed the name from his website, but not the lamp.

Photo: Diaz Kleefstra.

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