Intellectual Property Tools for Fashion Design

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to determine what tools intellectual property law has to protect fashion designs. We use fashion industry history to determine its value, importance and main elements. From this analysis we determine that in fashion industry creativity, ingenuity and innovation have a fundamental role in the designing of fashion objects. Depending on whether the creation is technical, ornamental or artistic, these will have a different protection scheme. Throughout this article the figures of copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and industrial designs are analyzed, proposing in each of the figures the cases in which they are applicable to the fashion industry. Although fashion designs can be protected by various intellectual property rights, the most common types of protection for designers and companies are design patent and applied art. The use of these figures leads us to analyze the possibility of obtaining a cumulative protection by copyright and patent law. Mexico’s law establishes the cumulative protection, but courts has determined that a design that wants to be registered as a work of applied art must be original and generate a feeling of pleasure in the spectator.