Fashion Law And Its Interventions With Intellectual Property
By Snigdha Gupta & Lucky Chetri, Amity Law School,Kolkata.*
Abstract
Fashion law is a complicated and developing topic of law that deals with intellectual property protection in the fashion sector. The primary laws governing fashion law in India are the Copyright Act of 1957, the Designs Act of 2000, the Geographical Indications Act of 1999, and the Trademark Act of 1999. In the fashion industry, these rules safeguard a wide range of intellectual property rights, including copyrights, designs, geographical indications, and trademarks. The interaction of these regulations can be complicated, and there are still significant loopholes in the protection provided to fashion designs in India. Firstly, fashion designs are frequently fleeting and ephemeral. They are intended to be worn then discarded, and they may only be fashionable for a short time. This makes obtaining IP protection for fashion designs problematic, as most IP rules require that the work be fixed in a tangible form and have some degree of persistence. Secondly, fashion designs are frequently iterative and cumulative in nature. Fashion designers frequently build on the work of other designers, and determining who owns the rights to a particular design can be tricky. This can make it harder to enforce intellectual property rights against infringers. This paper presents an overview of the fashion law landscape in India, as well as the need for distinct legislation to ensure proper implementation of laws governing the fashion industry to protect their rights in multiple ways. It examines the key regulations that safeguard intellectual property in the fashion industry, as well as some of the difficulties that fashion designers encounter when trying to secure their work.
Keywords: Fashion Industry, Design, Challenges, Intellectual Property, Legislation, Protection.
* The authors are final year Law student pursuing BA. LL.B. (Hons.) from Amity University, Kolkata.
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