Marketing and social media campaigns designed to promote a brand, product, service or business where consumers enter a competition to win a prize are known as “trade promotions” and typically fall within two categories – “games of skill” and “games of chance”.
Read MoreIn many jurisdictions, it is customary for claimed features of a design to be depicted in solid lines while disclaimed features of a design are shown in broken lines.
In Australia, unless parts of the product are separable, a design will be read as being the overall article represented and the parts with broken lines are not completely disregarded.
Read MoreThousands of Australians are falling victim to online shopping scams every year. In June 2023 alone, over two thousand scam incidents were reported with a total combined loss of AU$1,115,264 according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.1
Read More“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the why we live, what is happening.”
Coco Chanel
In this edition of Fashion Law, we cover a range of topics which are having an impact on businesses and consumers in the fashion and luxury products sector worldwide.
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K&L Gates is proud to be hosting, as part of the PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival, its annual fashion law seminar. As an Official Supporting Partner of the 2022 Festival, this year our session will cover recent changes to the Australian Designs Act and how these changes will assist fashion designers in protecting their valuable designs.
Read MoreThe Australian Federal Court has ordered women’s active wear manufacturer and retailer, Lorna Jane Pty Ltd (Lorna Jane), to pay AU$5 million in penalties for making false and misleading representations to consumers, and engaging in conduct liable to mislead the public, in connection with the promotion and supply of its “LJ Shield Activewear”.
Read MoreMike Tyson, the famous former boxer, has sued Australian streetwear brand Culture Kings and its founders. Mr Tyson alleges the respondents have engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law for using his name, nicknames and likeness to sell t-shirts, without his permission. Mr Tyson alleges that Culture Kings’ t-shirts bear images of him, his name as well as his monikers “Iron Mike”, and “Kid Dynamite”.
Read MoreIn a technological age where most consumers are receiving their information digitally, brands need to find new ways to engage with consumers. With nine out of ten Australians owning a smart phone and spending on average three hours a day on their devices, consumer engagement by way of multimedia is growing, increasing the popularity of movement trade marks.
The first movement trade mark was registered in Australia in 2002. There are currently 99 registered movement trade marks in Australia.
Read MoreIn the recent judgment State of Escape Accessories Pty Limited v Schwartz [2020] FCA 1606, Justice Davies of the Federal Court of Australia found a fashionable neoprene tote bag was not a “work of artistic craftsmanship” and therefore not an “artistic work” for the purposes of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (the Act). Since the Court found that copyright did not subsist in the State of Escape bag (the Escape Bag), there was no finding of copyright infringement.
Read MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic has driven a new reality for both fashion brands and the consumers they serve, with the changes being sharp and vast, and many of which will be permanent, such as the shift to online. Fashion brands have acutely felt the disruption to supply chains, retail stores, and delivery networks.
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