The always creative and outlandish Nicki Minaj seems to have gotten herself into some hot water during New York’s fashion week. Minaj apparently wore a “flagrant rip-off of another designer’s work.”  That designer, Jessica Rogers, claims to have sent photos of her designs to Minaj’s people. Rogers also claims to have coined the term “puff [...]

A court in Dusseldorf, Germany upheld a temporary ban on the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 that is had issued on August 9.  Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann, however, declined to ban the sale of the tablet in other European Union countries.   According to the judge, Samsung’s design was too close to a design Apple [...]

Harper’s Bazaar has posted an article on the fight against phonies selling counterfeit designer items… through the Internet. Be careful buying brands folks, you just may end up supporting the estimated  7 percent of our annual world trade — more than $600 billion — that is in counterfeit or pirated goods. See more information at [...]

In the future, it may be common to “print” an actual physical object, like a customized piece of jewelry or a replacement part for a bicycle, from a 3D printer in your home garage. Surprised? It may come sooner than you think – and there are intellectual property issues that abound. 3D printing uses an [...]

When Madonna rose to international superstardom with her 1985 hit “Material Girl,” from her sophomore studio album, ‘Like a Virgin,’ the song title soon became synonymous with the artist. Decades later, she has collaborated with daughter Lourdes Leon to create a juniors fashion line cleverly named “Material Girl.” The clothing line, released exclusively to Macy’s [...]

As the models were preparing to hit the runway at New York Fashion Week’s new Lincoln Center location last month, the fashion industry welcomed the world’s first center dedicated to the emerging field of fashion law directly across 62nd Street at Fordham Law.  The Fashion Law Institute, headed by fashion law pioneer Susan Scafidi, will [...]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, you could barely go anywhere without seeing the Obama “Hope” image on a poster, t-shirt or bumper sticker.  Since then, the iconic image has become the focus of an intense debate about fair use in copyright law.  Critics of artist Shepard Fairey’s work call it mere theft, while supporters commend [...]

By Amanda B. Agati There is something palpably wrong about the current state of copyright protection for fashion design, or lack thereof.  To illustrate, Steve Madden, a brand notorious for copycatting, sunk to a new low in the Fall of 2007, when its graphic designers stole not only the design, but the actual photograph of [...]