From the WSJ blog:
For years, fashion designers have been wishing, hoping, praying, lobbying for better copyright protection for their designs.
Well, on Wednesday, the industry got a leg up in its long quest, when the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prohibition Act, also known as the fashion design protection bill.
The bill, introduced by Senator Charles Schumer earlier this year, would help to protect the intellectual property rights of designers by creating an amendment to chapter 13 of the Copyright Act– an act that currently applies only to vessel hulls.
Vessel hulls? That’s right, vessel hulls.
The current bill, which could go to before the full Senate before the December recess, creates a “substantially identical” standard for infringement, largely borrowed from trademark law. It would create a 3-year term of protection, for designs that have both originality and novelty.
For a good overview of the bill’s specifics, click here.
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