business law

One day during physics class, Donita, an enterprising fourteen-year-old student, began drawing designs on her shoelaces.  By the end of class, Donita had decorated her shoelaces with the name of the school, Drexel High School, written in blue and gold (the school colors) and with pictures of dragons, the school’s mascot.  After class, she showed the designs to her teacher, Mr. Langley.  When Donita got home that night, she wrote about the shoelaces in her diary, in which she also drew her shoelace design.

Mr. Langley had been trying to think of how he could build school spirit.  He thought about Donita’s shoelaces and decided to go into business for himself.  He called his business Spirited Shoelaces and designed shoelaces for each of the local schools, decorating the shoelaces in each case with the school’s name, mascot, and colors.  The business became tremendously profitable.  Even though Donita never registered her design with the patent or copyright office, does she have intellectual property rights in the shoelace design?  Will her diary be useful in proving that she created the design?  Decide whether or not Donita has a patent or copyright for the shoelace design.