Rights and trademarks
Trademarks, patents, the long running copyright dispute over the Hang, and who owns the music you play on your instrument.
Business and legal
Trademarks, the copyright dispute over the Hang, selling and shipping safely, import charges, insurance, and making money with the instrument.
Everything in this section is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Intellectual property law, customs rules, VAT rates and insurance regulation all differ between countries and change over time, and the handpan’s legal position in particular has been actively litigated in Switzerland and Germany for years and is still moving. If money or liability is riding on the answer, take advice from a qualified professional in your own jurisdiction.
This section covers the two things people usually discover late: that the instrument has an unusually complicated legal history, and that owning something heavy, fragile, valuable and mostly made abroad has practical consequences.
On the legal side, the short version is that “Hang” is a registered trademark belonging to PANArt and names only their own instruments, that “handpan” was coined in 2007 as a deliberately generic term and is free to use, and that the serious dispute has never been about patents at all but about whether the instrument’s visual design is protected by copyright as a work of applied art. Swiss courts have so far said that it is. What that means for builders outside Switzerland is genuinely unsettled, and these pages try to describe the position without overstating either the risk or the reassurance.
On the practical side, the rest of the section is about transactions: selling without being defrauded, pricing a used instrument honestly, getting one across a border undented and undertaxed, insuring it against the things that actually happen to it, and the real economics of teaching and playing for money.
Contents#
| ID | Question | Level |
|---|---|---|
| BIZ-01 | Is “Hang” trademarked, and by whom? | beginner |
| BIZ-02 | Is “handpan” a free term that anyone can use? | beginner |
| BIZ-03 | Did PANArt patent the instrument, and what protection existed? | intermediate |
| BIZ-04 | Can I legally build and sell handpans? | advanced |
| BIZ-05 | Can I use another maker’s scale names? | intermediate |
| BIZ-06 | Who owns the copyright in handpan music, and what about covers? | intermediate |
| BIZ-07 | Do I own the recordings I make of my own instrument? | beginner |
| BIZ-08 | How do I sell a handpan safely, and where? | beginner |
| BIZ-09 | How do I price a used handpan? | intermediate |
| BIZ-10 | How do I pack and ship a handpan without it arriving damaged? | intermediate |
| BIZ-11 | What are customs, duties and VAT when buying a handpan from abroad? | intermediate |
| BIZ-12 | What happens with import charges into the UK and the EU? | intermediate |
| BIZ-13 | Should I insure my handpan, and how? | beginner |
| BIZ-14 | What does musical instrument insurance actually cover? | intermediate |
| BIZ-15 | What does it take to teach handpan as a business? | advanced |
| BIZ-16 | Can I make a living as a handpan player? | advanced |
Files#
- Rights and trademarks · BIZ-01 to BIZ-07
- Selling, shipping and insurance · BIZ-08 to BIZ-16
See also: History, Buying, Making and tuning, Care and maintenance
Selling, shipping and insurance
Getting money for an instrument safely, getting the instrument across a border in one piece, insuring it, and the honest economics of teaching and playing for a living.