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DISPUTES OVER COPYRIGHT IN CLOTHING
Disputes frequently arise in the fashion industry over whether copyright can be asserted over garments and garment design drawings made by fashion designers, to prevent others designing identical or similar clothing.
In a recent interpretation, the Intellectual Property Office stated that clothes, as three-dimensional objects, are not in themselves "works" within the meaning of the Copyright Act. If images are attached to garments, such images usually qualify as artworks, with reproductions of such artworks being attached to the clothing; but the garments themselves are not works. If design drawings on the basis of which garments are made display a sufficient degree of creativity, they can be works within the meaning of the Act. Copyright in such drawings exists from the time when they are completed, and they are therefore protected under the Copyright Act. However, clothes made according to such design drawings are merely executions of work based on the drawings. Their manufacture is not an act of reproduction of a copyright work, and the garments themselves are not works or reproductions of works.
In other words, if a reproduction of an artwork is attached to clothing, the artwork may be protected under the Copyright Act; and fashion design drawings are also protectable under the Act if they are sufficiently creative. But no copyright may be asserted over clothes themselves.