Poor IP protection?

20 November 2007
New Zealanders are creative people. No more so than in the fashion industry. The creations of our fashion designers are sought after not just in New Zealand but on the world stage. We are regarded as edgy and forward thinking.

We are starting to recognise and salute the contribution we make to the world fashion stage.  Our ingenuity, creative and innovative designs says it all.

We understand that we punch above our weight.  And yet while we are not deterred by our minnow status and are ready to take on the big boys, fashion designers take unnecessary risks by not properly protecting their intellectual property (IP) rights. 

This is surprising in an industry struggling to deal with fakes and “me-too” imitations.

Recently A J Park commissioned UMR Research to conduct a survey of 500 New Zealand companies about their attitudes to intellectual property.  One hundred creative and fashion businesses were included in the mix of businesses surveyed for our A J Park IP Outlook™ survey.

The feedback from those 100 creative and fashion businesses was insightful and worrying.  55% of those surveyed said IP protection was important to growing their business yet only 23% said they knew a lot about how to protect their IP and only 14% said they thought their IP was well protected.

These results are staggering for an industry that has a better than average understanding of the importance of IP according to the survey results.    Indeed the industry thrives and survives on IP rights such as brands, copyright and registered designs.  It seems that while fashion and creative businesses recognise the value of what they create and the need to protect their rights, they are just not doing it.

A key barrier revealed in the survey about why fashion businesses were not protecting their IP was a belief by 69% of them that IP rights are often ignored by other businesses. 

Nearly seven out of ten creative and fashion businesses surveyed used the ‘everyone’s doing it’ argument to justify not protecting their most valuable assets.  The irony is that other businesses ignoring your IP rights is the best reason for protecting and enforcing your IP rights, not for ignoring the risk.

Having a distinct brand that is registrable as a trade mark and ensuring that you can lay claim to the copyright in your fashion designs are small steps to take to ensure that your most valuable assets are protected.

Interestingly cost was not the only reason highlighted for not protecting IP rights.  About 83% of fashion and creative respondents said they saw IP more of an investment than a cost. 

For those fashion and creative businesses who had protected their IP, a huge 67% said that it gave them an advantage over competitors. This result was offset by 42% of businesses surveyed saying that they believed that they had lost business because of no or poor IP protection.  This was the highest loss rate of the five business groups surveyed.

The answer is clear. New Zealand creative and fashion businesses need to step up and protect their IP rights if they want to stay relevant and competitive in their industry.

An edited version of this article was published in Apparel November 2007

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