Now represented by new ACID Council Member Mel Holliday of Chiselwood
Anti Copying in Design (ACID) is delighted to announce that Mel Holliday, Managing Director of leading award-winning kitchen and furniture design company Chiselwood, has been appointed to the ACID Advisory Council. At the meeting, Mel, along with other ACID Council members talked at length to Tim Moss, CEO of the Intellectual Property Office, about the diverse IP issues they face. It was an opportunity for Tim to hear first-hand some of the real concerns of the design sector.
Chiselwood MD Mel Holliday said, “As an acclaimed award-winning design-led company, we are constantly innovating through creative design. This takes considerable investment and when we are copied and look alikes are produced from our original designs we naturally get very frustrated. Chiselwood are proud of being leaders, not followers. Through ACID, we have built up a robust knowledge of our IP rights and have created a sound IP strategy against those who copy. I hope to work with ACID within our sector to encourage an ethos of IP respect, compliance, ethics and to help build an understanding that it is wrong to use our IP unlawfully.”
Dids Macdonald, OBE., ACID’s CEO said, on welcoming Mel Holliday to the ACID Council, “Mel brings to the table the integrity of someone who has built her business with her husband Martin on honesty, originality and skilled craftsmanship. I very much look forward to working with her to improve IP awareness and understanding within the kitchen and bespoke furniture sector. The ACID Council is a guiding influence on design and IP strategy now and for the future. The diversity of its membership ensures that all sector issues and IP interests are identified and represented. Mel brings a keen awareness of IP to our Council, sadly through her own experiences of being copied, but it is this knowledge which will help us better understand the challenges that she and others face within the sector.”
Chiselwood, like other companies within this sector, have experienced several issues where competitors have copied their designs from whole room plans to individual pieces. For Chiselwood, using ACID and their experienced teams has given them the confidence to continue and strengthen ways to protect themselves for the future. For companies like Chiselwood who build their reputation on original design, communicating a proactive IP strategy is essential and ensuring there is a robust policy in place to protect drawings and materials sent to customers is an essential part of any sales process. One of the most vulnerable situations is designs being replicated from sales drawings and specification documents and this is where the ACID IP Databank can provide that vital evidence to support ownership.
Founded by Martin and Mel Holliday in 1989, Chiselwood has achieved many accolades, most recently the company was the sole European kitchen company to reach the World Finals of the Sub Zero/Wolf Kitchen Design Contest in the USA in 2017 and was awarded the Made in Lincolnshire (Sold Nationwide) Award this year. Design Director Martin Holliday also reached the final 4 of the UK Kitchen Designer categories in the prestigious KBB Review Design & Retail Awards in 2018.
Chiselwood undertakes private commissions throughout the UK, has worked in Europe and the Caribbean and has extensive experience of working with leading interior designers and architects. For the past 16 years, all the leading national home interest magazines have featured Chiselwood’s bespoke kitchen and furniture projects regularly. No standard ranges are produced, and each project is designed individually by Design Director, Martin Holliday, to suit the architecture of the room and the lifestyle of the client.
Spread the Word
