Intellectual Property and the Footwear and Textile Industries

Nottingham Lace Market

Author Allan Murray-Rust

Source Wikipedia

Creative Commons Licence

Jane Lambert


According to the East Midlands Textile Association ("Emtex") the East Midlands has the highest concentration of clothing and textile companies in the UK. Nottingham lace, Leicester knitwear, Northampton shoes have an enormous international reputation founded on branding, craftsmanship and design.

These intellectual assets that are protected by registered trade marks, registered designs and other intellectual property laws and on the 10 Sept and 7 Oct 2915 I shall explore such legal protection in a seminar for MBL entitled Intellectual Property and the Fashion Industry.  In this seminar I will cover the following topics:

• What sort of IP protection does my employer or client require for his business and where?
• What provisions should I insert in my employer or client's licence or manufacturing agreement?
• What should I do if I find copies or lookalikes of my products in competitors' shops?
• What's Hot? The implementation of s.74 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 - John Kaldor v Lee Ann/Specsavers vASDA/Thomas Pink v Victoria's Secrets
• IP basics; terminology, intellectual assets (brands, designs, technology and works of art and literature), intellectual property (trade marks, registered designs and unregistered design rights, patents, trade marks, law of confidence and action for passing off), institutions (Intellectual Property Office, Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, European Patent Office, World Intellectual Property Organization), Sources of law (treaties and conventions (TRIPs, Paris and Berne), EU legislation, statutes), enforcement. remedies, licensing
• Advising the designer: types of design, aesthetic design, functional design, design registration and equivalent regimes, TRIPS, Paris and Rome Conventions, Designs Directive, Community Design Regulation, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Registered Designs Act 1949, licensing, enforcement
• Advising the manufacturer; patents, trade marks, designs, licensing, cabbage, summary of laws in China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey
• Advising the retailer: trade marks, passing off, searches, agreements with designers and manufacturers
• Dispute resolution: High Court, Patent Court, IPEC (multi track and small claims), IPO examiners' opinions, appointed person
• IP strategy: identifying appropriate rights for particular jurisdictions, selecting and instructing foreign attorneys, watch services.

My seminar in London will take place on 10 Sept 2015 and my seminar in Leeds on 7 Oct 2015. Both will start at 09:30 and end at 17:15 and will earn 6 hours CPD. The standard cost is £480 but there will discounts for season ticket and smart plan subscribers. Register on-line or call  MBL on 0161 793 0984.

Hinckley company wins copyrights and unregistered Community design action

Jane Lambert

Fashion and textiles are an important industry in the East Midlands. According to Wikipedia

"Hinckley is a traditional centre of the hosiery industry. The first framework knitting machine was brought here by Joseph Iliffe in the 17th century and by the 19th century Hinckley was responsible for a large proportion of Britain's hosiery production. Since the Second World War the hosiery industry has steadily shrunk in size although several textile firms remain in the area."

Perhaps because of its connection with fashion and textiles Wikipedia also reports that Hinckley is home to the creative industries with up and coming graphic designers.

In John Kaldor Fabricmaker UK Ltd v Lee Ann Fashions Ltd [2014] EWHC 3779 (IPEC) (21 Nov 2014) a Hinckley clothing manufacturer successfully resisted a claim for copyright and unregistered Community design infringement by a London design house because it was able to show that its fabrics, though similar to the claimant's, had been designed independently. For those who want to know details of the case I have written the following article Is this a copy? John Kaldor Fabricmaker UK Ltd v Lee Ann Fashions Ltd 11 Dec 2014 NIPC Law.

There are a couple of important lessons from this case.

The first is that the claimant would have won had it registered its design as a registered design in the UK under the Registered Designs Act 1949 or as a registered Community design for the whole UK under the Community Design Regulation as you don't need to prove copying for registered or registered Community design infringement - only that the defendant's design does not produce on an informed user a different overall impression. As there is no examination of for registered or registered Community designs it is a lot cheaper and more straightforward to apply for a design or Community design registration than it is to apply for a patent or even a trade mark.  Many businesses do it for themselves.

The second is that IP litigation is no longer something to be feared as there are now limits to the costs that can be incurred and courts focus on the important issues so that trials are finished within a day.

If anyone wants to discuss this case or indeed copyright and Community designs in general he or she should call me on 0115 824 9090 or 020 7404 5252 during office hours or use my contact form.