Fashion and 3D Printing: a new paradigm?

Maria Victória Rocha

Keywords

Fashion Law; Copyright; Industrial Property Rights; Unfair Competition; Piracy; 3D Printing.

Abstract

Fashion articles are largely copied by knockoffs and make alike industries, leading fashion originals industry to lose money. The fashion industry is constantly adapting itself to imitation and piracy. Copy affects high fashion industries. Fast fashion companies that make knockoffs, even before the original designs are sold, are most benefited by the practice, often hurting small highly qualified designers that don’t have ways to react. Fashion goods may be protected by Copyright, Models and Designs, Trademarks and Other Distinctive Signs, Patents and Utility Models, Rules Against Unfair Competition, E-commerce, Domain, Names, Advertising Law, and by the sui generis right of Producer of Data Bases. There may e overlapping of protections. Nevertheless, piracy rules in what concerns fashion. 3D Printing entered the fashion world late, as compared to other areas, because the technology and materials were not suitable for the fashion world, but once it entered the fashion industry it is changing the way this industry functions. Our aim in this work is to see what how 3D printing has the power to transform the fashion industry and raise a few questions, especially regarding intellectual property piracy, that can be much stronger than what already happens.