Fast fashion plagiarism 猖獗 luxury brands can't sit still

It has become a fashion trend to disrupt the schedule of the fashion week and display the menswear show into the women's fashion show, but there is another fashion trend worth discussing: luxury brands have begun to apply for design patents to resist fast fashion. The plagiarism of brands and light luxury brands. In the past few months, Yves Saint Laurent has obtained 8 design patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Louis Vuitton also added 6 design patents. Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga received 3 and 2 design patents respectively.

This is not a brand new strategy, because luxury brands have been using design patent protection for decades, but in recent years more and more brands have begun to follow suit, relying heavily on this form of protection. The conditions for designing patents extend to New, original and decorative designs, in short, design patents turn into the appearance of a functional product, such as the appearance of wallets and shoes. Because trademark law and copyright law do not include clothing in the scope of protection, because in the United States to plagiarize those apparel designs that have not been granted design patents are not illegal. Based on this consideration, luxury brands have begun to rely on this new form of protection to prevent others from manufacturing, using, and selling products that can confuse consumers. This type of design patent protection is generally valid for 14 to 15 years. The effective duration depends on The date of application for the constituency.

Different from trademark protection and copyright protection, patent protection also has shortcomings, namely cost and turnaround time. Compared with trademark protection and copyright protection, the cost of patent protection is high because the registration cost of the first two is less than US$500, according to recent reports. Show, patent protection costs more than 10,000 US dollars. The turnaround time, which is the time interval between the submission of an application and the successful application, takes 18 months. Although the one and a half years is not very long, it is very long for the rapidly updating fashion industry due to the seasonality and cycle of the fashion industry. Sex, usually designed products are available, have not waited until the approval of the design patents, replicas have begun to circulate in the market.

Therefore, luxury brands will mainly apply for such patent protection for the company's major projects, and the cost of each patent will be controlled within a few thousand dollars. Although design patents are less frequently used in the fashion industry than trademark protection and copyright protection, there are also many brands that apply for patent protection for a single product of the brand, such as Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton. These brands will not only pay for the patent protection of the project, they will also apply for the design of patents for the brand's classic hot products, which will be more conducive to brand products become valuable investment products, not consumer products. This is different from the products that brands hold to show fashion shows. The products on the fashion show floor are quarterly, and these insured products are not quarterly.

Although there is no public information available on the number of design patents in the fashion industry, it is certain that design patent applications have been increasing since 1960. In the past few years, the number of applications for design patents has increased by at least 1,400 items each year, and especially from 2014 to 2015, the number of design patent applications has increased by 3,719.