Stuff like this is still happening, if I understand correctly, on the basis of intellectual property rights.
I know of a case where a faculty of a larger university got a new building, realised that numerous birds broke their necks on the large windows and wanted to use some kind of visual deterrent to prevent that. (Not the usual bird silhouettes, AFAIK, but something striped.) They received something like a cease and desist letter from the architect.
The faculty, you ask?
Biology.
