Back when I was in law school I learned about the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, because it was pretty close to the turn of the century and I thought copyright was interesting.
I didn’t learn about the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, which, given the 20 years since then, seems like an oversight. It turns out next-to-nobody learned about it and it hasn’t done much.
But it’s kind of cool. You can copyright* your hull design. Vessel hulls don’t get normal copyrights because vessel hulls are functional in nature. And most of them don’t get patents either because they aren’t really patentable. But especially with smaller vessels, it’s really easy to take a hull, then take a mold of that hull, then start making that hull and ripping off somebody else’s work. That seems bad. There otta be a law, right?
The state of Florida passed a law that said you can’t do that. But then the Supreme Court struck it down, finding that this particular area of IP law is occupied by Congress and states are not at liberty to pass additional laws. So then it got stuck into the DMCA.
The problem is nobody has applied for a vessel hull copyright in about a decade. If anybody reading this (a) has a vessel hull design and (b) wants to register it, let me know. It’ll be fun. I won’t charge for the work.
*I say copyright but it isn’t really. It’s sui generis - it’s way briefer than a copyright and you have to file for it, unlike a copyright.