Schumer Tries Again

Last week was Fashion Week in New York, and timed to coincide with the festivities was Sen. Charles Schumer’s reintroduction of a bill to create a new, unique form of copyright for fashion designs.This idea is not new; indeed, it dates back many decades. But the particularities of this proposal are a little different.


Here’s the BNA Patent and Trademark Daily on the bill:


The U.S. Senate’s latest attempt to extend intellectual property protection to fashion design includes provisions requiring the designer to provide notice to alleged infringers prior to initiating enforcement proceedings. S. 3523, the Innovative Design Protection Act of 2012, introduced into the Senate Sept. 10 by Sen.

Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), also contains a section exempting internet service providers and search tools from infringement liability.

As “Fashion Week” in New York and elsewhere wound now, a scheduled Sept. 13 markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee was

postponed.

* * *

Fashion design protection has been debated in Congress since 2006. In general, the bills have aimed to revise design protection under the Copyright Act, in 17 U.S.C. 1301 et seq., by creating a three-year term of protection for original articles of apparel. “Substantially identical” articles of apparel—“so similar in appearance as to be likely to be mistaken for the protected design, and contain[ing] only those differences in construction or design which are merely trivial”—would be liable for infringement.

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Published on September 19, 2012 15:33
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