Digital Fashion, Real Rights: Can Virtual Clothing In The Metaverse Be Protected Under The Designs Act, 2000?
Jayantika, LL.M., Gujarat National Law University
ABSTRACT
This paper considers whether virtual fashion images designed for use in the metaverse can be protected as a “design” under The Designs Act, 2000. To do so, it carries out a detailed statutory reading of the definitions of “article” (section 2(a)) and “design” (section 2(d)), charting the Indian courts” recent and rapid evolution culminating in the Calcutta High Court’s 2026 decision in NEC Corp v Controller of Patents from a physical, literal and mechanical reading of these provisions to their more purposive, technology neutral counterparts in the context of graphical user interfaces. The paper concludes that such a development provides strong, but not definitive reason to believe that virtual fashion may be enjoying design protection, and identifies the critical conceptual crisis, that is, the complete absence, in a virtual fashion garment, of any tangible, hybrid “article” upon which such design is applied at which existing Indian authority ceases to be persuasive. Drawing on how the interaction between the Designs Act and section 15 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the Supreme Court’s two-way test in Cryogas Equipment v Inox India, and the developments in the European Union, the UK and the US, the paper concludes that Indian law currently stands at a midway position: it already protects some digitally assisted or embedded creations, but remains uncertain as to the protection of entirely digital, platform-independent fashion, and would benefit from codified legal certainty, as recently introduced in the EU’s 2024 legal reform.
