Does Anyone Own the Rights to Shipping Container Designs?

Locals in Christchurch, New Zealand, happily crowded into the city’s central business district last week, a place they’d been forced to avoid as the city rebuilt and recovered from the damage of a large and destructive earthquake in February. The crowds gathered for the re-opening of a popular shopping mall, though it has since reopened in a slightly different format. Stacked shipping crates have been installed as temporary storefronts, and what's been dubbed the City Mall Re:START project is now housing 27 retailers while the former mall continues its own recovery. Missing their favorite stores and the public experience of shopping, residents have been ecstatic about the temporary mall project. Less thrilled are the developers in England who say the whole thing was their idea.

Boxpark Shoreditch is being touted as “the world’s first pop-up mall,” and is scheduled to open in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London later this year. It’s set to be a collection of converted shipping containers that will house small retailers and local businesses. And when its developers noticed that New Zealanders opened their own version in Christchurch last week, they were not particularly happy.