Fashion Jacket Case Study

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The Situation
Jasper, Summer and Dak, also known as the Trio, have come up with a design for a new women’s jacket. The jacket is a black, gold studded, floor length garment perfect for the style conscious market of 14-23 year old girls. The jacket will include logo branding and be mass-produced for a wide market. However, the Trio is so wrapped up in their creative process that they need guidance on how to protect their intellectual property.

Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property (IP) is a series of laws that dissuade the replication of another persons work. IP is a term used to describe various legal avenues of copy protection, whether it is copyright or trademarking. However, within the fashion industry serious flaws in the protection …show more content…

This means to say that if a portion of a garment can be removed from the original piece and still meets elements of the copyright law; the garment itself will be protected under copyright law (New Media Rights, 2011). For example, the creation and use of original prints or pattern design.

The fashion industry is led by trends, and in doing so trends influence the designs seen throughout various apparel designers and providers. Trends emerge as a bi-product of having no copyright protection and arguably aid in the commercial success of the industry. The act of copying and re-appropriating existing garments and ideas has been suggested as the backbone of the apparel industry and drive sales on both a high end and low market scale (Blakley, 2010).

Tom Ford explained in a presentation of the fashion industry and copyright that knock-off products and low-end replicas target a different audience, and that the customer of Gucci isn’t likely to shop at a market selling fake designer goods (USC Annenberg, …show more content…

With a trademark, a company can register their logo, which in turn cannot be replicated in any form without express permission from the trademark holder (Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, 2011). After building the reputation of its brand, a company can clearly define itself in a competitive marketplace with a trademarked identity that is unlike any of its competitors, giving it a clear point of difference and customer trust that will directly translate into increased sales and brand loyalty (Philpott, 2004, pp. 171 –

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