Protection Of Fashion Designs In The European Union: Copyright And Design Laws – Interface Or Deadlock?
Ishaan Deepak Joshi, MIT-WPU, Faculty of Law
Introduction
The protection of intellectual property is important to the majority of European fashion marketing strategies. "Fast-paced innovation expressed in the production of periodic collections of latest fashion designs" drives the industry. Europe remains the epicentre of high fashion, and fashion design protection is an integral part of its cultural character and legal systems. In contrast to the United States, fashion items in the European Union, including conventional garment categories, accessories, including footwear, may be protected by European and National design regulations, as well as national copyright legislations.
Design Protection Laws in the European Union
By initially enacting the EU Designs Protection Directive (98/71/EC) ("EU Directive"), the European Union established a unified method to protecting design rights that have been adopted by the 28 member states (i.e., the sovereign states that constitute the European Union). The EU Directive harmonised nationwide design protection systems across all European Union member states whilst also requiring registration of "designs" and defining design as "the presentation of the entire or a portion of a product that results from the characteristics of... the lines, curves, colour combinations, form, ornamentations as well as textures."
