Many Luxury Brands Are Being Plagiarized And Will Be Hit Hard.

In the past few months, Yves Saint Laurent has obtained 8 design appearance patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Louis Vuitton has also added 6 design appearance patents, and Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga have obtained 3 and 2 design appearance patents respectively.

This is not a brand new strategy, because luxury brands have been using the design appearance patent protection for decades, but in recent years more and more.

The card begins to imitate and relies on this form of protection to combat plagiarism.

The design patent extends to the original and decorative design. In short, the design patent becomes a functional product's appearance protection, such as the appearance of handbags and shoes.

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Being plagiarized, the brand creative director, Phoebe Philo, has been intolerable. In January this year, C e line first sought the law for the design and appearance protection of one of its most famous handbags, Luggage Tote. The brand said it would more effectively crack down on counterfeiting and counterfeiting.

Because trademark law and copyright law do not include costumes in the protection area, because in the United States, it is not illegal to plagiarize designs that are not granted the design appearance patent.

Based on this consideration, in order to crack down on fast fashion brands and

The plagiarism behavior, the luxury brand began to rely on this new form of protection, to prevent others from making, using and selling similar products that could confuse consumers. The appearance of this design patent is generally valid for 14 to 15 years, and the length of validity depends on the choice of brand.

Although design appearance patents are less frequently used in the fashion industry than trademark protection and copyright protection, more and more luxury brands are now applying for design patent protection for a single product, for example.

and

Behind this is to crack down on fast fashion plagiarism by law.

Some classic hot products apply for design patents, which will help brand products become more valuable.

This is different from the products displayed by the fashion show.

The products are quarterly, and the products that are applied for protection are long-lasting.

Although there is no public information available to count the number of patents on the design and appearance of fashion industry, it is certain that since 1960, the design appearance patent applications have been increasing.

In the past few years, the number of applications for design patents has increased by at least 1400 per year, especially from 2014 to 2015, with 3719 applications for design patents.

However, the design patent protection takes 18 months from the time of filing the application to the successful application. Although a year and a half is not very long, it is very long for the fashion industry that is upgrading rapidly. Due to the seasonal and cyclical nature of the fashion industry, the design products are usually available and have not yet been examined and approved by the design patent.

And light luxury in the market circulation, which has also become

Licensing is the biggest headache at present.