A hypothetical case. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental:

A well-known Magician (we'll call him Magician #1), who is currently in vogue buys rights to a trick from one inventor, and performs it on his television show.

Concurrently, a Magician in another part of the world (let's call him Magician #2) has a similar, but not identical effect that he has been developing and performing for a number of years. Other reputable performers have watched him develope his idea.
Magician 2 decides to market his effect. He does, it is sucessful and is well reviewed.

Magician number one, the celebrity performer, decides he wants to market the trick that he has bought the rights to. He sees Magician number 2's trick on the market, and decides it will affect the sales of the effect that he wants to sell. The Celebrity Magician calls all the dealers selling Magician number 2's effect, tells them that Magician number 2 has ripped him off, and the Celebrity Magician uses his name recognition as leverage to cajole, coax and threaten the dealers so that they will stop selling Magician number 2's effect.

Some dealers give in, others tell the Celebrity Magician to go stuff himself.

Any comments on the ethics of this situation?

- entity

Wow! That's a can of worms!
Sounds to me that magician 1 is about to lose a lot of credibility. Such underhanded practices are bound to explode in one's face, if you know what I mean. How long would it take, in this day and age with the internet and all, for word like that to get around?

Criss Angel .. Icarus effect... hmm.

There is a popular levitation device that levitates a spinning magnet above a base. It was invented by one scientist. It was shown to a spectator that decided to patent this levitator knowing full well that he was not the inventor nor was he going to tell the scientist of his deed. Years later when the spectator has a large sum of money, the scientist gets word of his loss, and decides to something about it. So far the courts have sided with the spectator due to the scientist not doing his home work and doing the patent himself. Does this apply here?

The issues in my hypothetical case involve defamation of character (possibly slander), unfair business practices, etc., as well as issues of prior use and ownership of intellectual property.


In your case, the scientist could have easily halted the Patent application of the spectator by showing proof of prior use and his claim to have intvented the product in question.

- entity

Tell that to the creator of the Rubics Cube.The creator showed his new cube to his son, who took it to his friends across the street. The next thing he found was that the father of that friend, patented the idea and thus the creator was out millions. And no judge sided with the creator! Why? Don't know but that is history for ya!

Rubic had his day in court and won in the end, I believe.

- entity

No, Ideal Toy's was successfully sued by Larry Nichols for infringing on his 1954 cube puzzle patent. Rubic was not married at the time he created his infamous cube and therefore had no son which could have shown it to a next door neighbor.
Rubic patented his cube in Hungary and became one of the first millionaires in the eastern block.

PS. You can't patent a gimmick without revealing the secret... I wonder if the patent office has any deals on magic....just kidding.