Sports Wear, Swim Wear Designs

Shoe designer Stuart Weitzman filed a lawsuit against another company after seeing a similar product to the one he designed on sale at JC Penny. The offer by Weitzman to JC Penny was to either destroy the shoes or give him half of the proceeds for each shoe sold. The case is still pending. Weitzman also sued Sears for a similar infringement and Sears agreed to remove the shoes from their shelves.

According to Reena Jana in a recent article in Businessweek, “Designers have been trying to win broad legal protection for years. Although books, movies, architecture, and even software code are protected under copyright law as original art, clothing designs are not. So while a dress may look exactly like a Marc Jacobs original, retailers can slap a different label on it and sell it with legal impunity. (Counterfeit garments, by contrast, pretend to be the real thing–right down to the label–and are illegal.)”

Because designers can only take others to court if they have a patent on an item, it makes it harder for them to receive any type of restitution. Jana continues, “designers have been showing up in Washington to back a proposed Design Piracy Prohibition Act. The bill offers legal protection for as long as three years and covers the entire design, not just aspects of clothing such as fabric patterns. It would impose fines of up to $250,000 or $5 per copy, whichever is higher, on those deemed to have stolen an original design.”

Along with filing suits and patents, designers are also coming up with new designs that make it harder for pirates to copy. The downfall to this could be a fashion look, no one may like.

Tags: Jc Penny, Original Design, Prohibition Act, Restitution, Sears Shoes, Shoe Designer