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Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, on H.R. 2511, July 15, 2011.
Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, on H.R. 2511, July 15, 2011.
In recent years, there has been much debate about the need for intellectual property protection for fashion designs. Two bills introduced before the 111th Congress purported to provide a solution for this need. The Design Piracy Prohibition Act ("DPPA"), which was introduced in the House April 3, 2009, and the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act ("IDPPPA"), which was introduced in the Senate on August 5, 2010 would have amended Chapter 13 of the Copyright Act to provide sui generis protection for fashion designs. While some scholars worry that bills like the DPPA and the IDPPPA would stifle creativity, many designers think that such protection would afford them more freedom to create new and innovative designs. Scholarly debate aside, piracy is a $12 billion drain on the fashion industry that "steals the very essence of enterprise" by diluting branding and making it more difficult for new designers to begin their careers. Because current intellectual property laws do not address the unique issues involved in fashion design, pirates appropriate, or even directly replicate, others' designs even while facing a constant stream of lawsuits. For example, the company Forever 21, one of the most notorious design thieves, has been the subject of over fifty lawsuits between 2006 and 2009 alone. Unfortunately, intellectual property law's current status makes it very difficult for designers to find relief for their pirated designs. This Comment discusses the piracy problems plaguing the fashion industry and offers a potential solution based on combining the best aspects of the DPPA and the IDPPPA. Part II examines design piracy - both what it is and the attempts that have been made to gain protection against it - and discusses why current jurisprudence insufficiently addresses the needs of the American fashion industry. Part III.A analyzes the need to protect fashion designs and addresses opponents' concerns. In light of those concerns, Part III.B examines how each bill addresses design piracy and suggests potential changes that would make each bill more effective at protecting fashion designs. Finally, Part IV offers parting commentary.
Fashion design does not currently receive explicit protection under U.S. copyright law. Limited avenues for protection of certain types of apparel designs can be found through trademark and patent law, though proponents of copyright protection for fashion design argue that these limited means are insufficient. The 111th Congress did not pass legislation that would have provided a three-year term of copyright protection for fashion designs, the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (H.R. 2196) and the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (S. 3728). This report analyzes these two legislative proposals. The 112th Congress may consider similar legislation regarding fashion design protection.
The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) was created in June 1860, and is an agency of the U.S. federal government based in Washington D.C. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the Executive Office of the President and other executive departments, and independent agencies. A hearing is a meeting of the Senate, House, joint or certain Government committee that is open to the public so that they can listen in on the opinions of the legislation. Hearings can also be held to explore certain topics or a current issue. It typically takes between two months up to two years to be published. This is one of those hearings.
Fashion designers in the United States, unlike those in many foreign jurisdictions, enjoy only limited intellectual property protection for their creative endeavors. The American patent, copyright, and trademark systems each present obstacles to obtaining protection for fashion designs. Copyright and trademark law protect certain elements of fashion designs, such as unique fabrics and logos, but the protections do not extend to the general shape and appearance of a fashion design. Moreover, copyright and trademark law do not grant protection to products and features that serve a utilitarian purpose. On the other hand, patent law presents difficult statutory barriers; a design must be novel and nonobvious, and can only gain protection after a lengthy litigation process. The result is a gap in intellectual property protection that leaves fashion designers vulnerable to a stitch-by-stitch, seam-by-seam replication of the designs they labor to create. While the duplication of fashion designs is not a new phenomenon, the practice has recently received increased attention due to high-profile lawsuits by famous designers including Anna Sui and Diane von Furstenberg against low-end, mass retailers such as Forever 21. The defendants in these cases are known as “fast-fashion” firms for their ability to replicate original designs at alarming speed, on a large scale, and at low cost. Many fashion designers disapprove, claiming that fast-fashion firms' capabilities of quickly copying original designs and bringing those copies to market deprive original designers of profits and stifle design firm creativity. The fashion industry, represented by the industry group Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), has sought Congress's assistance to rectify the longstanding dearth of intellectual property protection for fashion designs. The Senate introduced a proposal to amend the copyright statute known as the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (IDPPPA) last session, and the House of Representatives recently introduced the same proposal. In this comment, I address the normative question of the optimal scope of intellectual property protection for fashion designs through game theory's unique perspective of law and economics. I do so by developing a game theoretic model that evaluates the impact of greater legal protection on the incentives of fashion designers to bring lawsuits to protect their designs and of fast-fashion firms to make replicas of these designs. Analyzing the incentives at play will allow me to predict whether the IDPPPA in its current form will deter fast-fashion firms from replicating designs, encourage innovation, and maximize welfare in the fashion industry. Part I of this comment offers a detailed overview of the current state of intellectual property protection for fashion designs in the United States and compares U.S. protection with the legal regimes of foreign jurisdictions. Part II discusses the recent developments in the fashion industry that have triggered an outcry against copying and summarizes the scholarly views on the normative question of which legal regime, if any, should exist for the protection of fashion designs. Part III provides background on the law and economics approach to intellectual property protection and explains the relevance of game theory, a law and economics tool, to the analysis of copying fashion designs. Part IV lays out the assumptions and the structure of a game theoretic model and applies this model to different legal regimes aimed at protecting fashion designs. Finally, Part V examines the findings of the game theory analysis in Part IV, evaluates the efficacy of the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act as a policy choice, and introduces possible alternatives.