Current Status of Fashion Design Protection
Currently, fashion may only be protected by copyright to the extent that its shape is non-utilitarian enough to qualify as a creative "sculpture," or to the extent that a design, pattern, or image on the clothing qualifies as "pictorial" or "graphic." While current laws against counterfeit goods do provide some protection for designers, this is so only when the trademark is used and not when merely the design is copied under a different label. In addition, fashion may be protected by design patents if the requirements for patentability are met. To be patentable an ornamental design must be new, original and non-obvious. The United States Patent and Trademark Office website (www.uspto.gov) has a searchable database of patents, and includes patents on apparel in class D2, carrying articles in class D3, and eyeglass frames in class D16. Technological advances to the means of textile and garment production, as well as increases in the number of distribution channels and the availability of cheap labor in emerging economies have enabled those who would copy these designs to do so quickly and inexpensively. Legislation targeting design piracy has already been enacted in Europe, India, and Japan.
Read more about this topic: Design Piracy Prohibition Act
Famous quotes containing the words current, status, fashion, design and/or protection:
“Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At all events, as she, Ulster, cannot have the status quo, nothing remains for her but complete union or the most extreme form of Home Rule; that is, separation from both England and Ireland.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... actresses require protection in their art from blind abuse, from savage criticism. Their work is their religion, if they are seeking the best in their art, and to abuse that faith is to rob them, to dishonor them.”
—Nance O’Neil (1874–1965)