The Fashion Trade in The United States

The fashion trade in the United States produces more than $300 billion in revenue annually. In addition to its significant assistances to the U.S. economy, fashion is reflected a form of art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City arranges numerous exhibitions highlighting fashion projects. Amongst the utmost prominent are ones glorifying Coco Chanel, whose iconic designs transformed the approach women wear dresses, as well as increasing the admiration of trousers throughout the 1920s; Alexander McQueen, whose projects were credited with conveying a sense of imaginary and revolt to fashion; and Charles James, who used sculptural, systematic and accurate approaches to build iconic ball gowns, and whose groundbreaking tailoring lingers to influence designers today .

The matter of federal regulation to protect industrialized designs is now old in the United States. Congress has raise their voice on the matter on repeated instances since 1914. Design protection bills accepted the House in the 71st Congress,  and the Senate in the 87th, 88th and 89th Congresses. In the 91st through 94th Congresses, design protection was joined with the copyright general amendment bill then undecided in the Senate. The form of the copyright amended bill accepted by the Senate in 1975 comprised of a separate title on design protection. The House Subcommittee, though, decided that design protection should be well-thought-out separately from copyright amendment. The copyright amended bill was ratified without a design protection constituent in October 1976, and became effective on January 1, 1978.

Design protection bills were announced separately in each Congress from the 96th through the 102d. All-encompassing hearings were held by the Subcommittee in 1990 and 1992. There has been no additional act in Congress on the general design protection matter since the 1992 hearing. However, the 105th Congress considered and ratified more limited design protection legislation in 1998 as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( “DMCA”). Title V of the DMCA, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act ( “VHDPA”), presented sui generis defense to the project of vessel hulls. That legislation, organized in Chapter 13 of Title 17, was founded mainly on the preceding legislation, but tightened the subject substance of protection from designs of useful articles in general to designs of vessel hulls.

Design Patents

Two kinds of patents are accessible under the U.S. Patent Act: utility patents and design patents. Designers can access guard for their fashion designs by applying for a design patent. Design patents defend the appearance of a project, or decoration, as long as it is unique, non-functional and nonobvious to a designer of normal skill in the art. When applying for a design patent, the designer necessary claim certain features of the project that are to be secure; therefore, the patent is directed at the basic design concept, not the exact product the designer sells. Attire designs are generally believed un patentable as they are considered useful. More so, attire designs are believed to be obvious and not unique.

Although definite features of a design are not unique or clear, their mixture in that design might be. Therefore, a designer can patent crucial features and vital parts of the apparel design. Design patents can be valuable as they grant designers the right to reject others from manufacturing analogous or significantly alike products. Also, more meaningfully, a designer is not limited to attaining a single design patent each product. Each feature of a design can be covered under a separate patent, which magnifies the design’s protection.

Options Exist

Even though no clear law protects fashion designs in their entireness, assumed the variability of protection options offered, a designer can use trademark, copyright and patent law to attain protection for different aspects of their designs. While the fashion industry will expected to continue trying to attain superior protection, it may be heartening for designers to recognize options occur with respect to protecting the novelty and originality in their work.