Christian Louboutin’s Red-Soled Heels Take One Step Back With US District Court Decision

Satomi Aki is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. On August 10, 2011, the US District Court denied Christian Louboutin S.A.’s motion for an preliminary injunction against Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) to stop marketing the shoes that allegedly infringe Louboutin’s trademarked red lacquered heel pending the outcome of the trademark infringement lawsuit that […]

The Need for Weak IP Protection in the U.S. Fashion Industry

Despite the fact the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the United States fashion design industry, relative to other innovative sectors such as computing, music, television and film, may seem non-existent, fashion accounts for $200 billion in sales annually in the U.S.  Two prominent legal scholars, Kal Raustiala and Christopher Springman, have written a series […]

IP Rights: The New Designer Label

Fashion is everywhere you look. In the US, the fashion industry's annual sales are higher than those of books, movies and music combined. Everyone wears clothes, whether for necessity, the desire to follow current trends, or for any reason in between. Fashion can be an indication of an individual's social status, and also reflects cultural […]

Does Fashion Need Copyright Protection?

This is the issue currently being considered in the US Congress through an attempt to introduce the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (Act). The Act was initially presented in 2006, but at that time the bill was criticized because the broad wording attempted to stop any design that was "substantially similar" to the original, which would […]