New Research on Fashion Innovation Thriving Partly Due to Lack of IP Protection

TechDirt has a link to an intriguing NYT article that cites some new research that suggests that despite recent trends towards IP protections in the fashion industry, it has been its consistent lack of such throughout most of its history that has at least partly propelled its success.

The article also has a pretty good snaphshot history of IP protection in the industry which certainly helps frame the discussion. It links to the work of law professors Kal Raustiala of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Chris Sprigman of the University of Virginia who point to two factors that they believe have been contributed to the industry’s success, despite protections on their designs: induced obsolescence and anchoring.

We are certainly starting to see induced obsolescence in consumer electronics. The biggest difference as far as I can tell, really, is the cost of a designer hoodie versus the latest hot personal media player. However I think it may be concrete cause for hope that innovation will continue to flourish if software patents are struck down or the success of GPL and similar licenses leads to greater access to good ideas.

Anchoring seems to me actually to be using copying for building and consolidating trends. That’s where the gotcha seems to come into play, that if the fashion industries succeeds in bring protection in, that they will lose what has apparently been a very effective means of driving creativity and sales.

I especially like that the article closes with another, related example. The more models and experiences we can cite, and the more concrete they are, the better, in trying to cleave more closely to the innovation interpretation of the progress clause, if you ask me.

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