The HNB said that late on 6 February, the Currency Committee, as the expert body of the HNB Council in charge of the competition for the designs of the national side of euro coins, received a statement from Stjepan Pranjković whereby he withdrew his design for the marten motif and waived all rights stemming from having participated in the competition.
Today, the Currency Committee accepted Pranjković’s decision and, in order to eliminate any further uncertainty, suspicion or doubt concerning the selection of the design for the marten motif, decided to invite new proposals for the design.
The HNB said that during the competition all authors were required to sign statements whereby they confirmed that their designs were original intellectual creations made solely for the needs of the competition.
The new competition for the design of the back of the €1 coin with the marten motif will not bring into question the timely manufacture of Croatian euro coins, the HNB said.
The selected designs for the national side of euro and cent coins were presented last Friday, including the marten motif for the €1 coin by Pranjković, who has a master’s degree in applied arts.
Shortly thereafter, however, media reported that his design was almost identical to a marten photo by Scottish photographer Iain H. Leach, which raised the question of intellectual property infringement.
In a letter to the HNB Currency Committee on 6 February, Pranjković said that, “spurred by the unpleasant atmosphere in the media and on social networks as well as the pressures” he was exposed to, he had decided to withdraw his design for the €1 coin with the marten motif as well as waive all rights stemming from having participated in the design competition.
