European Design Rights: A Model for the Protection of All Designers from Piracy

摘要

I have suggested that, because of recent changes in the fashion industry, principally the increasing globalization of design copying and piracy, American fashion designers now need limited legal protection for their designs. My study of the legal protections provided for design under U.S. IP laws finds that current laws are inadequate to protect design for a variety of reasons. Copyright law prohibits the protection of most functionalist designs because of the troubled doctrine of conceptual separability.