Summary of TEDxUSC – Fashion Industry and Patents

The TED talk Lessons from Fashion’s Free culture, sheds light on the role intellectual property and patens play in the fashion industry – “not that much.” The speakers says that “apparel design is too utilitarian to quality for patents / IP.” The only type of protection fashion houses have is their logos and trademarks, but designs on shirts and different button layouts are not patented, meaning there is a lot of room for fast fashion houses like Zara, H and M, and Top Shop, to follow and copy the lead of higher end luxury designers.

While one may think that copying trends may be harmful, there are actually certain virtues of copying. Trends can be set faster. In today’s global world, fashion designers will want to have their trends set faster so that they can appeal to new customers faster too.

It is interesting to note that there are other industries where inventions cannot be copyrighted as well – for example magic tricks, food recipes, and car designs. I think in the larger context, this video shows how patents and copyrights have different roles in different industries, and the fashion industry is one in which copyrights do not play a role that seems very significant.

So the next time Burberry tries to sue one of the lower end companies for stealing its Burberry check, I (which I see has been copied or replicated in many instances by other fashion labels that are lower end like Kenneth Cole Reaction for example), it should remember that copycats might actually help set trends that are beneficial to Burberry.