Proprietary Templates?

["Colin Green" <cgreen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Happy New Year Fellow Framers, 

Question. Can "templates" be proprietary? For example, lets say that a corporation has a Frame template that they've had designed for them. If you remove any trademark or other overtly proprietary text and graphics, are these templates then "fair game" for someone else to use? 

The reason I ask is not that I personally want to plagiarize a template. Here's the situation.  I work for a third-party company that produces software and manuals that go out under the name of another, larger company. The larger company supplied the Frame templates for their look-and-feel: as the tech writer, I fill in the blanks. However, the small company I work for is now planning to sell product straight out of our shop, bypassing the larger company, using our trademark, etc., on everything. 

I'm assuming that I need to create a template(s) specific to the look-and-feel of our company proper. This will require time and planning. However, I expect my boss to ask to me just to do the aforementioned "plagiarism". That is, remove the name and logo of the large company and run with their template. Is it legal? Is it ethical? It makes me nervous. The large company is already going to be hot under the collar as we bust out on our own. Recognizing their templates is unlikely to please them, as well.

Personally, I prefer to do my own design if for no other reason that I have to use the bloody thing. I like to do my own customization. Furthermore, I understand all too clearly the necessity to "brand" a company image. However, folks around here lack publication savvy and are, naturally, in a big hurry to get stuff out the door. They don't have much patience for talk of "look-and-feel". That is, I need to justify the time and expense to create new templates, which I can't justify if this plagiarism is, in the words of the boss, "doable".

Let me know. Thanks!

Colin


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