Importance of Intellectual Property Rights in Fashion Industry

Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Problem Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 6 Intellectual Property Rights: ....................................................................................................................... 11 Fashion Industry & Intellectual Property Rights Issue .............................................................................. 12 Chapter 3:Research Methodology .............................................................................................................. 17 Research Purpose .................................................................................................................................... 17 Research Approach .................................................................................................................................. 18 Research Strategy .................................................................................................................................... 18 Data Collection ........................................................................................................................................ 19 Sampling .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 20 Validity and Reliability ............................................................................................................................ 20 Reliability ................................................................................................................................................. 21 Ethical Considerations ............................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 4- Findings and Analysis: .............................................................................................................. 22 Thematic Analysis: ...................................................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 5 - Conclusions and Recommendations: ....................................................................................... 26 Recommendations: ...................................................................................................................................... 28

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
The report will start with an appearance of background of our research area. It will be pursued by a problem discussion and would then result into the main purpose of the study and aim of our study. The delimitations in carrying out the research would also be discussed in this study and lastly, the expected results would be determined. 1.1 Background Fashion, like art, is a manifestation of life. It is a kind of common art, through which a culture observes its philosophy of beauty and goodness. In a world where everybody is conscious about the image, it has become more and more important to dress the part. Fashion never remains constant, its definition changes frequently. The change may ensue more swiftly than in other areas of human activity. It is used as the other name for glamour, allure, fascination and style. It can in fact gratify a wish to understand new and attractive things. Trend is making the youth society crazy. Since decade, clothes have represented a persons profession, status, gender, zones and wealth. It is a trait of a persons everyday life and his uniqueness. Our clothes can represent a lot to other people - what we wear, how we wear and what we wear helps others to finely read the social situation of ours. In todays era, people pay a lot of attention to their looks, style and appearance. Humans mentality is designed in such a manner that they spend money on clothes as their status and position allows. Fashion is a language cipher, and symbols which non-verbally speaks the meaning about individuals and groups. It is just not limited to apparels but also widens towards luxury goods. But, the fashion rights have been a flaming issue in this industry. Fashion designers are regularly complaining about their designs and creation being copied by other designers without their prior permission. So, it has become vital to stop such as called piracy as it is acting as a hindrance in the growth of this industry. Every year, the fashion industry invests enormous amount of money creating new designs in every new season. The designers ought no doubt to have possession over their original design and creations, but as they do not have an official legal option to have this ownership over their designs because they are not registered. One of the other challenge which the fashion industry faces is due to the retailers and the ready to wear apparel makers, as they come out with low-cost and reasonable knock-offs of the
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original design and the customers also feel convenient to purchase the knock-offs as the fascination with designer clothes. There are lot of misapprehensions nearby such controversies. First and the foremost is, that any item of clothing created by an individual does not comes under the Copyright Act and shall not be allowed for protection under the same. The two Copyright Act, 1957 and Act 2000 are having different significance. The Act 2000 is related to articles of clothing, farming, artificial and natural sheet material, unlike the Copyright Act 1957, which is valid for artistic work, musical and dramatic work. Designer garments and accessories are enabled for protection under the Act of Designs 2000 for a period of fifteen years. It means that a designer will not be allowed to do protection for his own work until and unless the same is registered under the act, 2000. An action could only be taken against the infringers, when the design is registered under this act. The owner of the design can recuperate from the person who copies illegally, a sum not exceeding twenty-five thousand rupees or a suit for recovery of damages and ban against recurrence. Thus, getting the design registered of apparel is obligatory and helps in discouraging others from copying it, and also helps fight against the deceitful competitors who do such type of illegal work (Barrere and Chossat, 2004). Problem Discussion The fashion industry makes enormous amount of investments to make new and creative designs, but due to the short life span of fashion and its trends many of the owners of the creation does not uses the law made for designs which is the lone remedy for all illicit practices. Getting the designs registered, would help the fashion designers to avoid others from misusing or exploiting the original designs. The main problem which we would be discussing in the study report is about the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) and the fashion industry around the world. This study would help the upcoming talents of the fashion industry to know more about the IPR and the industry and what are the benefits of getting a design protected. It would also enable the designers to know about the benefits of patents, copyrights and trademarks. The main aim of the research is to identify the importance of Intellectual Property Rights in the Fashion Industry. The research is being carried on to achieve three main objectives: To analyze the usefulness of the IPR in fashion industry; To identify various types in IPR in fashion industry;
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To study the value of copyright of designs in this industry. IP Rights have appeared as a crucial matter in the industry, since past few years, even the

advocates of IP protections have mentioned that scientific and technological inventions as well as films, books and literary and artistic works are difficult to create, but very easy to copy. It discourages the creator for future investments and new inventions, as the person who copies will free- ride on the efforts made by the creator. The orthodox justification for IPR forecasts, that in a world without IPR, copying will strangle new creations and innovations. But, still few seem to have noticed the importance of these rights. The fashion industry exists in a large global industry which produces a titanic variety of creative and artistic goods in the market, which is bigger than those of books, films, music and other scientific inventions. Yet, the industry is running without any strong IP rights protection. The whole study report is based upon analyzing the value of IPR in the industry and exploring the various types of IPR which are present in the law with which the designers could protect their original creations. In this report, we are doing a survey on the industry in which we have argued that how the lack of Intellectual Property law has deterred the creators and how this could be changed so, that the industry does not suffers and innovations in designs could be seen in every season. Fashion apparently offers an interesting and important test of an individuals creativity. The research would explain whether IP Rights are beneficial in the clothing industry or not. While carrying out the research, the researcher also faced certain problems, which acted as an obstrucal in performing the same. The problems could be lack of time and money with the researcher and vague and unrelated responses of participants. These types of problems would arise while carrying out research, because sometimes even participants do not have enough knowledge and interest on the matter so, gives vague and indistinct responses, which ultimately wastes the time and energy of the researcher and increases his complications to resolve the issue (Bast and Pyle, 2010).

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this chapter is, to present the theoretical concept of the IP Rights in the fashion industry. Initially, we will be discussing about the fashion industry and the rights associated with it, further will discuss about the piracy which is being followed in the industry and trends of copying designs of others in the industry and how it affects the original design. Lastly, we will talk about the ways of protecting a design and what laws should be implemented in the industry to abandon this piracy. Fashion & its Working Industry: The industry of fashion is one of the industries which have trouble in getting sufficient protection for the products that are being manufactured. Today, fashion industry is highly suffering from the issue of getting the designs copied by other infringers. The piracy which is being followed in the industry is mainly done through three ways: trend imitation, counterfeit goods and knock-offs. This type of piracy could affect anyone from a new designer to a well established designer. Generally, a start up designer can find the replicas of her/his work in the high street and a well established designer could also get the duplicates of his design which are copied by knockoff artists, moment after they appear on the red carpet. Repeating up of design is prevalent in the industry, but the impact of this is very severe especially for the upcoming designers for whom every sale counts (Dutfiel, 2003). Copying in this industry is out of control, but still the rivalry, innovation and investment remains vibrant in this industry. Some people have a belief that the design created by the designer should remain in the public so that the industry could flourish. The thought behind this is that, not everyone has the potential to buy the original design from the haute couture designers so, the high end designers do the original work of creating new and original designs and the high street brands like H&M, Zara, emulates the same designs and sell at a very low cost in the market. Fashion firms take steps to keep the value of their trademarked products, but emerge to acknowledge requisition of their original designs as a fact of life. Design copying is widely accepted, rarely complained about, but more often celebrated as homage rather than assaulted as piracy. But, overall it is said that society must protect the great talent of designing and the court need to effectively preserve innovation and creativity in the fashion business (Zografos, 2010).
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This industry has a short product life cycle because of several reasons like enormous product variety, unstable and unpredictable demand, lengthy and inflexible supply process. The industry has been facing a tremendous transition over the last 20 years. Major contributors behind this transition are, increase in the use of electronic media for commerce in retail, which helps in easy and rapid transaction; the second factor is the significant consolidation in the retail sector and rise in the wholesale trade. The official estimates represents that the global industrys total revenue in the year 2006 was US $1,252.8 billion, which was approximately 68% of the overall industry value. China is one of the strongest economies in todays global world which has captured 65% of the global market share in 2006 in total apparel exports. The other major nations in the apparel exporting include USA, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, and India (Gehlhar, 2008). Clothing and apparel industry produces finished clothing products made from both natural and manmade fibres for e.g: wool, lycra, lenin, polyester, silk, cotton, and denims. The main segments which are covered in the apparel industry are of kids, mens, women clothing and bridal wear, mens wedding wear and intimate apparels. Apparel is basically sold through three major channels in the market through brick & mortar, catalogue, and through internet. The market share of the various channels is shown below: Category Brick and Mortar Catalogue Online/Internet Total Sales $ Billion 169.256 7.177 5.873 182.306 Market share (%) 92.9 3.9 3.2 100.00

Market Share
4% 3%

Brick and Mortar Catalogue 93% Online/Internet

The industry is growing at a very high rate but, still there are some factors which are acting as a barrier in the growth of this industry. Some of them are: The demand for apparels is increasing day by day, but the rate of production has still not been able to match with the increasing demand. To meet the demand, more production facilities are required. The raw materials required for the manufacturing of apparel are mainly available in the developing and under developed nations and these nations do not have sufficient resources and workforce to explore them and also do not have enough finance to set up factories for the production of garments. Due to globalization, the level of competition has increased very much and it is not easy for the industries to handle so much competition as they have to meet the target and maintain quality. China is producing good quality products at very low price, due to the availability of very cheap labour over there; because of this importers of developed nations are facing very stiff competition with it. The trade laws are still in favour of developed nations and they need to be reviewed, so that the developing nations could also facilitate more imports.

 One of the major challenge with this industry is the apparel industry is fashion driven and fashion keeps on changing frequently so, the firms have to cope up with the demand and have to generally work under high pressure (Blaszczyk, 2009). Sustainability in this industry is becoming increasingly significant. Today, the concept of fast fashion has gained very much popularity through various retailers who offers low-priced clothes which is meant to be worn a limited number of times. This type of fashion has given rise to the throw away fashion attitude and has increased the pace of the fashion cycle. The apparel companies and the consumers both are responsible for the increasing popularity of this type of fashion as the industry has been raised so much and has become more labour intensive, and requires less capital investment. Its attention has been now shifted towards the developing nations in the past years where abundance of raw material is available at a cheaper rate. In the export phenomenon, it has been seen that the exports of developing countries has increased nearly six times between 1980s to 1997. The biggest apparel manufacturing and exporters are mainly from the Asia-Pacific region which included countries like China, Hongkong, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Pakistan, India and Thailand. It can be seen with the help of a graph the percentage share of each nation:

It is being seen that fashion affects each and every member of the society. It symbolizes a daily opportunity to express ones personality. The fashion industry is chiefly divided into five major sections: The most expensive and exclusive segment in this industry is the Haute Couture which is made up of handful of companies who produces custom made clothes for the worlds wealthiest individuals. A step down segment in terms of quality and rate is the luxury segment, but still serves the affluent clientele. The third fragment is the affordable luxury segment that targets aspirational customers, those who are not so much wealthy enough to afford the luxury brands but would like to accept lower-priced alternatives. Other segment is the mainstream brands whose ultimate aim is mass appeal; they tend to sacrifice exclusivity for the popularity. The last segment is the discount brands that cater to the need of low-income consumers. The term Haute Couture means something very specific. The price for a piece of couture ranges from $25,000 to millions of dollars and though the market is small it has been escalating due to the detonation of new wealth in the market of emerging nations such as India, China and the Middle East. The entire couture houses produces ready to wear products, despite its high prices, it is less profitable compared to mass-produced ready to wear collections. However, as it serves to maintain a high fashion and luxurious brand image of the brand which adds sales of its other collections, such as ready to wear, accessories and cosmetics. The couture only includes womens wear which makes it more exclusive (Dale, 1969). The fashion industry is such an industry which is moderately affected by the economic changes in the country. As we can take the instance of recessionary fear in the US; has done nothing to damage haute couture, which is actually seeing a rise in the customers in the time when so many other industries were facing decrease in sales. The industry was once seen as almost exclusively for women, however in the past few years men have also begun to pay more attention towards their appearance and the industry has also started focusing more on catering to male clientele. Although, still women make the majority of purchases in the clothing industry,
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companies have started taking advantage of the male demographic and plea them in order to raise the sales (Easterbrook, 1990). A significant rise in the level of income of the consumer is being seen which has raised the sale of this industry. The graph below depicts the rise in the income of the consumers.

From all the above discussions, it is clear that the fashion industry is growing better than ever, the number of fashion weeks in a year has also increased in the world. Since fashion is just not restricted within the boundaries of any nation as, it is an art which is full of creativity and innovations. But still the industry is suffering from some of the major issues like copying of exclusive designs by the infringers and piracy of the trends which is depressing the creators and innovators of the design. We have already discussed in this study report that it is so important to get the designs registered to save it from the other high street designers (Avery, 2008). Intellectual Property Rights: By getting the designs registered, the designers can prevent other people from exploiting the original designs. Registration of original and new designs could be done by the designers on a case-to-case basis. Large amount of investment is made in the fashion and clothing industry to create a design, but as the life span of fashion and its style is shorter, and so many designers are not interested in using this law which is the sole remedy of all the purpose. Style trends are the
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integration of various ideas, which develop through sharing, expanding and increasing in attractiveness through exposure and change in imitation (Thomas, 2011). The designers can safeguard their original designs by getting them registered, but the rights over creative ideas are not practically probable. In countries like UK and the EU, the law proffers protection for the unregistered creations for a comparatively shorter duration so, that the designers could save their creations from the infringers. For such a short life span of the design, registration of all new design sounds like an expensive and lengthy process. The fashion trend is motivated by the concept of revolutionary fashion designers and there is no law besides wearing a design, the one which is worn by a fashion public icon. But, minimal thing could be done is protection of popular designer wear so as to safeguard it from immoral rivals from stealing the innovative creations (Jolley and Philpott, 2012). In this industry copying is out of control, as the creative constituent the apparel designs is outside from the area of Intellectual Property law. Yet the industry makes a fabulous variety of clothing designs at a fast pace. The current protections are not sufficient for this industry so adequate amount of Intellectual Property Rights are required in this industry. There are mainly three factors which need to be taken care of while implementing IP Rights i.e. Patent, Trademark and Copyright issues. Patent protection is mostly not available because it requires lot of time to obtain this right due to the strict fundamentals of innovation and creativity. Fashion Industry & Intellectual Property Rights Issue Patent A design gets this exclusive right when it is new, original and unique. It covers the attractive part of an article, instead of its usefulness. As the registration process is lengthy and costly, by the time designer gets the creation patented, the article loses its functionality. The rules to attain this right in many terms are very rigid like the imaginative creations cannot be registered and so it is not widely accepted by the designers (Shand, 2002). There are basically three types of patents available in the industry utility, plant and design. Utility patent is provided to anyone who invents any new and innovative process, machine or work of matter or any useful development. The fashion industry is unable to get this protection because of the argument on the usefulness of apparel. The other two requirements for securing the utility rights are:

The innovation made must be original.

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The innovation must be non-obvious.

To be original, an innovation cannot be acknowledged or used by others prior to filing for protection. For determining a designs non-obviousness is that the innovation should have been clear at the time of innovation was made to the person having the skill in the art to which said theme pertains. It is because many of the designs are revised and are not fresh in the way the law requires. Patent of design offers another probable means for protection. It is issued for any new, fresh, original and ornamental design. But, the article should satisfy the new and nonobvious requirement to get the design protected. Even if some of the needs are not met for design protection, the object must be attractive and not only functional. Exclusive rights are not provided simply because the article which is manufactured not only pleases in appearance, but the necessity of functional requirement ought to be fulfilled (Keech, 2012). The judicial body usually treat garments as purely functional. It thus, emerges that there is nothing about the design that is not the outcome of its main function of clothing. In the process of protection, patent application is the biggest barrier. As it requires large amount of information which is time consuming process for a designer to accumulate for every individual design. The time taken for a designs protection is such a lengthy process that about one-third of all the applications are deprived of protection. In a case of 2006, it took an average of twenty months for an application to get patented and reach the desk of examiner. Even if the designs meet the basic requirements of novelty and non-obviousness, the time consuming process dishearten the designer (Verbauwhede, 2005). Trademark It helps in maintaining a status premium for some particular brands and could be quite precious. The industry invests somewhat heavily to control unauthorized use of their products. Many of the products sold by the street vendors are imitations that apparently violate trademarks. However, many of the designers copy designs rather than a trademark; these goods are sold under another trademark, but are clearly similar to the design of a fashion originator. The usages of trademarks law are different in protecting a design from a fashion brands as they are fairly limited. It is being noticed that, rarely a designer will evidently assimilate a trademark to an extent that the same becomes an element of the design. For e.g.; Burberrys distinguishing plaid is its trademark and many of
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its garments and accessories integrate this plaid into their creations. Many of the garments and accessories designers notably add the trademark logo on the outer side of the product. For e.g. the Louis Vuitton handbags are covered with the brands well known pattern LV mark. For these types of goods, the logo or trademark is the part of the design and, thus it provides vital safety against the copying of the design (Maskus, 2000). But, in majority of clothing goods the trademark is either inside the apparel or finely exhibited on small portions of the apparel such as buttons etc. So, for in most of the garments a trademark does not act as a barrier in design copying. The law for trademark also provides protection for trade dress, a concept limited to a products packaging, it involves the total representation of the product which includes the shape, size and colour combinations, texture of the material, design and graphics on the product and sometimes even the technique of sales (Growers, and Great Britain Treasury, 2006). In it many of the characteristics constituting the trade dress is key to the demand of the apparels design and it might play an important role in the ownership of design. The policy has yet not appeared as an alternative for protection because it is similar to copyright, restricted to non-functional design essentials. Perchance more significantly, trade dress is incomplete to design elements that are source designating, rather than simply ornamental (Witzel, 2004). Copyright It is a legal term which enlarges to original work of authorship articulated through one of various mediums by which the works could be apparent, replicated and communicated. The process of obtaining a copyright protection is very easy and is a legal concept which varies from government to government. It is similar to trademark law in which no filling up is required, is secured automatically when the work is shaped. A copyright involves a designer of original exclusive work rights and provides the copyright holder the credit of his/her work. Unlike the patent issue, the copyright protection does need to be novel it only needs to be original. A work could be said original even though it is closely similar to other work, but as long as the work is similar fortuitous and the result of copying. Even though copyright protection is attached from the time of creation of the design but it still needs to be registered. In fashion industry sometimes it is difficult to get the copyright protection for apparel or accessory as clothing is considered utilitarian. In the US constitutional law under ch-13, a design is said to be original if it
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provides a discernible variation over previous work pertaining to similar work which is more than merely insignificant and has not been copied from some other source. Ultimately copyright gives the most practical side of protection for fashion designers. However, it does not enlarges towards useful articles which is definite as those having essential useful function that is not merely to represent the outer look of the article or to express information. On the other hand, we can just as in the trade dress concept in which the design could be separated from the utility of an item, this separable creation is entitled for copyright protection. The term used by the court conceptual separability is used to distinguish which element of a design is adequate for the copyright protection and which are supposed to be inseparable from the useful components (Merges and Robert, 1996). Several reasons are discussed above, so as to why fashion design protection should be enacted. The current global market crisis is paying attention on the vital requirement to incentivize and safeguard innovation to solve both the problems i.e. the most challenging problem of protecting the design and to generate jobs and help in the economic growth as well. IPR refers to the whole thing from the creative arts, designs, and innovations. IP industries employ over 18 million citizens of US and provide them high paying jobs in faster growing fields. Definitely, it could be said that the worlds upcoming future economy will be on industries that depends on innovations, creativity and strong Intellectual Property Rights. The importance should be given on the promotion of strong IP rights particularly in terms of patent, trademark and copyright. As this industry creates high paying jobs opportunities for the people and provide jobs to over hundreds of millions of people around the world. From various researches, it was also found that this industry is going to grow faster over the next decade. Strong law for the protection of these rights are very much required because it gives encouragement to creativity and innovation to an individual and rewards the entrepreneurs. It also drives in the economic growth and competitiveness of a nation and creates various jobs prospect for the society. There are few of debates have also been raised over the legal policies and the IP rights. The traditional vision of IP gives attention to strong lawful protection of the intellectual property rights, on the basis that without these types of protection creativity will shrink down (Caenegem, 2007). The low-cost copies of a design demolishes the desire to innovate, discourages the innovators to invest that innovation demands. The traditional cases has
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seen a irresistible support in the international law, ultimately resulting that the copyright, patent and trademark have all been extended in respect of strength and scope in the few past years. Fashion clearly offers an appealing and important analysis of IP orthodoxy. Lack of copyright protection for the fashion designs has already destroyed innovation in the industry. So, we can say that Intellectual property is important in every possible industry and the investment of the intellectual resources has driven every sector towards the creation and preservation of IPR and the fashion industry is already moving into this direction, this industry considers the creation and protection of IP rights of great importance (Scafidi, 2010). Above all, we could say that there are several factors which we have already discussed for which the IP rights should be implemented in the fashion industry strictly. It will help the upcoming designers as well as the established designers to sustain their creativity and they would also be able to get the suitable value for their innovative and original design. Currently in market trend, both the knock-offs and the designers who are inspired by the approaches of the fashion are completely legal. A set of companies in the fashion industry like Zara and H&M brings designer clothes for their regular customers but without strongly copying the design of other big branded designers. Their clothes are usually not copied but rather just inspired by the high end designers. The ultimate aim of the fashion design should be to safeguard the originality of the design but not to limit the creativity. So, to do that the law should be in such a way that it should provide chance to get the design from the inspired bys rather than directly practicing knock-offs (Sorger and Udale, 2007). We cannot disagree that the perseverance of a low system of IPR in the fashion industry is obtained from its competence. It occurs due to the result of the features of the inputs which are generally used in the innovative production process. As long as creativity and tradition plays an important role in the innovative process, a benchmark PR system cannot be put into practice. Features of creativity are comprised up of strong constraint for defining, enabling, legalizing, implementing and exchanging the property rights.

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Chapter 3- Research Methodology

This chapter will give us the detailed and sufficient information of the research conducted in the fashion industry. The researcher will explain and justify the choices of methodology approaches that have been adopted in the report in order to evaluate the result. The process of investigation will be followed by the depicted process:

Research Purpose The main purpose of the study is to search for solutions and breakthrough of the problems. Research is basically the backbone of the study which is based on analytical results. It helps in finding information about the competitors, current market trends and about the customers. It is mainly conducted in six different ways: 1. Exploratory It investigates an area or issue on which a little previous work has been earlier carried out. Exploratory study in an organizational situation could be used to investigate whether or not a problem exists. 2. Speculative It is being carried out when the survey is implemented intentionally, where researcher figures out the current situation and hypothesizes as to their future implications. 3. Descriptive - It seeks to gather information that clarifies relationships, patterns and links between variables. It describes the present status of people, progress and attitudes. It is also known as statistical research. 4. Explanatory This presents as to why relationships, patterns and links occur. The main aim of explanatory is to answer the question of why, basically conducted to explain any behavior in the

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market. It could be done through questionnaires, group discussions, interviews and random sampling etc. 5. Predictive It aims to simplify from the analysis by forecasting certain phenomena on the basis of imaginative, general relationships. Predictive research offers how, why and where answers to the events. 6. Evaluative It focuses on systematic determination of value, worth and importance of something or someone. The objective of our thesis is similar to exploratory research as in this study the researcher wish to provide a better understanding of why the intellectual property rights are necessary in the fashion industry. The study is descriptive in the sense that the objectives are portrayed in the manner to clarify the link between two variables. The descriptive purpose is also reasonable by the sense that our investigation purpose is clearly structured. Since, it can be said that this report is partly explanatory since the study is summarized and explained by answering the survey questions and partly descriptive in nature (Walliman and Baiche, 2001). Research Approach In this report the researcher is relying upon the qualitative approach. A qualitative study is realistic when a researcher wants to explain about what has been observed, reported or registered into written form and not in numeric terms. Qualitative study involves gathering information through interview or focus groups and is often associated with small scale studies, and due to its capability to go through a problem it is considered as an excellent tool to handle versatile situations. In this report the main aim of the study is to examine the benefits of intellectual rights in the fashion industry and does not have to make generalizations. So, by doing small scale studies the researcher could explore definite variables in profundity and thus provide a better understanding of the study area. Research Strategy It is a significant part of the methodology; it helps to identify the appropriate method of collecting data and to make sure in the success of the study in the achievement of the aims and objectives of the report. There are various strategies which could be formulated to execute a
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study such as through case study, survey, observation, interview etc. The strategies should be put into practice appropriately by the researcher as per the report objectives and purposes. The investigator in this study would be implementing the questionnaire method and interview method to obtain the result. The questionnaire method could be executed to acquire the information that is still unexplored; it is also helpful to give explanation for the data and to support the other available information. The other strategy which we would be using in this report would be the interview method, which is vital to find out the qualitative information and justify the data in the most proficient manner. This strategy helps in having a face to face interaction with the participants, which ultimately facilitates to get the most suitable updates (Perry, 1998). Data Collection The data serves as the bases to conduct a study. It forms the source for evaluating the hypotheses devised in a study. It also provides the facts and figures essential for creating measurement scales and tables, which are examined with the help of statistical techniques. In this report the data would be collected in two different categories; one is the primary method and the other is the secondary method. The primary method includes data collection through observation, interview, questionnaire, focus groups etc. Primary data are known as the data that has been collected for the first time and for a precise requirement of the research. For this study the researcher has adopted the interview method. In interview method a well designed questionnaire with a set of questions is prepared and is distributed among the respondents. The main aim of the questions is to collect information regarding the importance of intellectual property rights in the fashion industry and how strong IP rights would help the established as well as the upcoming designers to safeguard their creations. The questions would also help to know the insights about the attitude of the respondents. The researcher has collected the data through by taking interview from 30 respondents. The questions of the research paper have been designed with the focus on acquiring relevant information from the respondents. The basic aim is to collect opinion and attitudinal information from the set of questions. The secondary data of the study is one which have has been already collected by someone else and are available for others usage. One of the prominent sources of secondary data collection method is the literature review. It can be obtained from various documents, books,
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journals, articles, websites etc. For this study report data has been collected by literature review of books, journals and articles. Sampling Sampling is economical and also saves the time of the researcher. It is the most important process under the research methodology. The sample should be huge enough to provide more significant data i.e. not too time taking to collect the data. The bigger is the sample size; less is the chances of inaccuracy when simplifying the entire sample. Sampling approach is chiefly used for the selection of suitable sample under the survey conducted for the purpose of primary data collection. In a research work variety of sampling strategy is available; it can be broadly classified as probabilistic sampling and non probabilistic methods. To conduct the survey random sampling method is being selected in this report. It is one of the purest forms of sampling. This strategy helps in the selection of the sample in a balanced manner. In a random sampling each member of the sample population has an equal chance of being selected. With the help of this process the respondents can be assured that the research is accomplished in an ethical manner without any violation of their personal values and interests (Harrigan, 1983). Data Analysis Data analysis in this report is done through two methods i.e. qualitative and quantitative methods. For the quantitative analysis questionnaire is being framed in respect of the impact of line managers team leading skills. Qualitative research design usually uses individual themes for data analysis rather than the physical linguistic units like words, sentences or paragraphs. In this research thematic analysis has been done, firstly proto themes are identified and then names of those are finalized, followed by their detail description and illustration along with the meaningful insights about them with a few quotations from the original text to help communicate its meaning. Validity and Reliability Validity - It focuses on assessing the accuracy of the findings and the quality of fit among an observation and the source on which it is made. It mainly includes three types of validity; construct validity, internal validity and external validity. There are generally some of the
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strategies to create validity in any research i.e. usage of multiple ways of evidence and set up series of evidence for the report. Validity can also be defined as how accurately the survey and its findings reflect the objectives under the study. Reliability It focuses on the exactness and certainty of a particular finding. It refers to the consistency and uniformity of the results obtained from the project to the likelihood that similar results could have been attained if the actions used in the study were virtual. Reliability can be maintained by keeping in view the data and facts which are accurate for the research under consideration. Reliability can be defined as elimination of variations in final outcomes due to repetition of research. Ethical Considerations Ethics defines that what is correct and just for individuals, groups and society. The field of Ethics postulates a framing, organizing, arranging, categorizing, supporting, preventing, and recommending the concept of right and wrong behavior of a human being. Before conducting any research it is essential to acquire the consent of respondents for involving them in the process. Permission to use any personal information should be acquired first. Respondents should be kept informed about the cause of research and why they have been selected to respond. Respondent has every right to withdraw or question the use of responses given at any point of time. It is very important to keep the secrecy of the information as respondents trust the interviewer while responding. Legal actions could be taken against the organization or individual who misuses the information of respondent (Schankerman and Pakes 1987).

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Chapter 4- Findings and Analysis: Data collection in this research report has been done in two different ways; one is focused towards the qualitative analysis of the survey, whereas other one is aimed for the quantitative analysis of the findings. Analysis is done through interview method, for this questionnaire has been prepared for the research. It has been conducted with 30 respondents selected through simple random sampling technique. To get an apparent image from the research various respondents were included it had some of the established designers, few upcoming designers and some of the lawyers as well. Response was collected in the form of detailed data. After the interview thematic analysis of the data is done in below mentioned steps: 1. Preparation of the data for analysis: The data collected from the interview is set down into text so that margins could be used to evaluate the every single information. 2. Understanding the text and selecting the things that are significant for the research: An inductive approach to thematic analysis allows emerging from the data, rather than looking for them. 3. Differentiating the important items into proto themes: In this stage themes start developing by arranging items related to each other into various categories. It is a flowing process to modify the categories and the new ones could emerge out generously. 4. Structuring the final form for each theme: The name, meaning and bearing data are re-evaluated, using the objects related to the data. This phase focuses on the original meaning of each theme. 5. Reporting each theme: Every theme from the question is recognized and is accounted as per the number of the questions. Further it is explained in brief along with some quotations from the original text to converse its importance to the reader.
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Thematic Analysis: Theme 1- Knowledge about IP rights during the course curriculum. The respondents were asked that whether they were educated regarding the intellectual property rights in their course of study, all of them responded in agreement. They answered that, IP rights is an ongoing process and is having great significance in the fashion industry. Respondents said that IP rights are beneficial for the designers who are spending so much on innovations and creativity and anyone merely copies the design. So, it is very much important to secure the designs. Findings It was found that the level of awareness about the IP rights among the respondents was good and they have an apparent knowledge about the significance of IP rights in the fashion industry. Theme 2 Learned about IP rights. When the respondents were asked that what did they learned in the IP rights. They said that they got to learn about the importance and usage of these rights in the fashion industry and how a designer could safeguard their creations through these rights. In this process they also learned about the three most significant methods of protecting a design i.e. Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights. Findings From the analysis, it was evaluated that the respondents were having efficient awareness about the various types of IP rights and how all these rights could be implemented. According, to the respondents IP rights are having great importance and has a direct relationship with the growth of the fashion industry. Theme 3 Ignored the value of the rights. When the respondents were asked over that whether they missed out the subject, majority of them replied that they know the importance of intellectual rights in the fashion industry and would like to use it in their creations. Most of them like to protect their designs but it takes lot of time and money to safeguard the design so, are not able to impose the IP rights on their creations.

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Findings From the evaluation of the data it was found that the established designers as well as the upcoming designers wanted to utilize the IP rights in their creations but were not able to implement it because of the lengthy and costly process of getting the design patent. Theme 4 Rather than theoretical knowledge any practical awareness about the IP rights. The researcher inquired from the respondents that whether they have any realistic knowledge about the IP rights or not. On this, a vague answer came from the survey as some of them were not having any practical awareness whereas few of them were having sound knowledge about these rights. The established designers and the lawyers were having much awareness about the intellectual rights. Findings From the above analysis it was found that the established designers were aware about the intellectual rights and how do a expensive and creative innovation is being copied by others easily whereas, the upcoming designers were not so much aware about the how the infringers do copying. Theme 5 IP protection in India. When the respondents were asked about the intellectual property rights in India most of them replied that they dont think that IP rights exists here as there are many instances when the design are being copied as it just hits the fashion strip. Designers are not using the IP rights in this country because of time and cost involved in it. Findings From the above study it could be seen that the designers are not much aware about the IP rights in India. The designers who are aware about these rights are also not using it in their creations and due to this the other infringers easily copies the designs. Strong intellectual rights are needed in India to protect the valuable creations. Theme 6 Production of garments in India. When the respondents were asked that will they would like to hold back in terms of production in India, on this most of them agreed the main reason depicted was as it is easy and cheap to manufacture garments in India. In India the designers could effortlessly get the raw materials at a
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very nominal rate so it is liked by many of the designers to hold back here in terms of production. Findings From the above calculation it was being found that the designers desire to hold back in India in terms of production to easy availability of raw materials for garments production. The only which they would like to improve is stronger intellectual property rights for the Indian fashion industry. Theme 7 Additional information about IP rights. On this question the all of the respondents agreed that there should be more information about these rights as it would help the established as well as the young upcoming designers to protect their creations from the infringers. Few of the respondents also suggested that the Fashion design council of India should implement strong rules and regulations so that no one could anyones design. Findings The above analysis depicts that the respondents wants more strong rights so that infringement could be stopped. Respondents also want the government to intervene into it to make strong policies so that valuable creations could be safeguarded.

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Chapter 5 - Conclusions and Recommendations: Fashion, like art, is a manifestation of life. It is a kind of common art, through which a culture observes its philosophy of beauty and goodness. In a world where everybody is conscious about the image, it has become more and more important to dress the part. Fashion never remains constant, its definition changes frequently. The change may ensue more swiftly than in other areas of human activity. It is used as the other name for glamour, allure, fascination and style. It can in fact gratify a wish to understand new and attractive things. Trend is making the youth society crazy. Today, fashion industry is highly suffering from the issue of getting the designs copied by other infringers. The piracy which is being followed in the industry is mainly done through three ways: trend imitation, counterfeit goods and knock-offs. This type of piracy could affect anyone from a new designer to a well established designer. Generally, a start up designer can find the replicas of her/his work in the high street and a well established designer could also get the duplicates of his design which are copied by knockoff artists, moment after they appear on the red carpet. Repeating up of design is prevalent in the industry, but the impact of this is very severe especially for the upcoming designers for whom every sale counts. Importance should be given on the promotion of strong IP rights particularly in terms of patent, trademark and copyright. As this industry creates high paying jobs opportunities for the people and provide jobs to over hundreds of millions of people around the world. From various researches, it was also found that this industry is going to grow faster over the next decade. Strong law for the protection of these rights are very much required because it gives encouragement to creativity and innovation to an individual and rewards the entrepreneurs. It also drives in the economic growth and competitiveness of a nation and creates various jobs prospect for the society (Pyle, 2003). In this research after extensive analysis of the data it was found that intellectual property rights are very much beneficial in the fashion industry and would help the established as well as the upcoming designers to protect their creations and innovations from the infringers. Some of the major findings concluded from the research are: Strong understanding and awareness about the intellectual property rights among the respondents
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Knowledge about the IP rights and usefulness of these rights. Value of IP rights are known among the people and want to use it in their creations. Established designers are well aware about the practical importance of IP rights. Various rights like Patent, Trademark, Copyright wants to implement in their creations but are unable to do because of enormous amount of money and longer time duration required for the same.

In India there are no strong rules and regulations for these rights and designs are easily being copied by the infringers. Raw materials in India are available easily and at very nominal rate and designers wants to uphold in the Indian market for production of garments in the fashion industry. After the survey it was being found that the respondents wants more stronger IP rights for the fashion industry and additional information should be provided to the upcoming designers to safeguard their expensive creations.

A design gets this exclusive right when it is new, original and unique. It covers the attractive part of an article, instead of its usefulness. As the registration process is lengthy and costly, by the time designer gets the creation patented, the article loses its functionality. The rules to attain this right in many terms are very rigid like the imaginative creations cannot be registered and so it is not widely accepted by the designers. Several reasons are discussed above, so as to why fashion design protection should be enacted. The current global market crisis is paying attention on the vital requirement to incentivize and safeguard innovation to solve both the problems i.e. the most challenging problem of protecting the design and to generate jobs and help in the economic growth as well. IPR refers to the whole thing from the creative arts, designs, and innovations. The importance should be given on the promotion of strong IP rights particularly in terms of patent, trademark and copyright. As this industry creates high paying jobs opportunities for the people and provide jobs to over hundreds of millions of people around the world. From various researches, it was also found that this industry is going to grow faster over the next decade. Strong law for the protection of these rights are very much required because it gives encouragement to creativity and innovation to an individual and rewards the entrepreneurs. It
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also drives in the economic growth and competitiveness of a nation and creates various jobs prospect for the society. There are few of debates have also been raised over the legal policies and the IP rights. The traditional vision of IP gives attention to strong lawful protection of the intellectual property rights, on the basis that without these types of protection creativity will shrink down (Miles and Huberman,1994). Above all, we could say that there are several factors which we have already discussed for which the IP rights should be implemented in the fashion industry strictly. It will help the upcoming designers as well as the established designers to sustain their creativity and they would also be able to get the suitable value for their innovative and original design.

Recommendations: In todays era, people pay a lot of attention to their looks, style and appearance. Humans mentality is designed in such a manner that they spend money on clothes as their status and position allows. Fashion is a language cipher, and symbols which non-verbally speaks the meaning about individuals and groups. It is just not limited to apparels but also widens towards luxury goods. But the fashion industry is continuously suffering from the fire of designs being copied by the other small designers. If the design is not having patent and copyright safeguarded it is easily imitated the moment it enters the strips. It is very much significant to spread the awareness of the IP rights among the people so, that the designers who are spending so much time to make a expensive and creative design could protect them. The fashion industry makes enormous amount of investments to make new and creative designs, but due to the short life span of fashion and its trends many of the owners of the creation does not uses the law made for designs which is the lone remedy for all illicit practices. Getting the designs registered, would help the fashion designers to avoid others from misusing or exploiting the original designs. Copying in this industry is out of control, but still the rivalry, innovation and investment remains vibrant in this industry. It is necessary to required steps to safeguard the creations. The three main strong IP rights i.e. Patent, Trademark and Copyrights should be given due attention by the designers as well as by the government so, that piracy could be stopped in this industry. From the research it was concluded that respondents are having knowledge and awareness about
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these rights. Designers are generally not able to implement these rights in their creations due to time taking process and enormous amount of capital required to get a design patented. Therefore, rules and regulations should be framed now in such a manner that anyone avail these privileges in their innovations and infringement could be stopped. From all the above discussions, it is clear that the fashion industry is growing better than ever, the number of fashion weeks in a year has also increased in the world. Since fashion is just not restricted within the boundaries of any nation as, it is an art which is full of creativity and innovations. The current protections are not sufficient for this industry so adequate amount of Intellectual Property Rights are required in this industry and the upcoming designers should also be made aware about it as it would help them to understand how the piracy is done and innovative designs are imitated. The ultimate aim of the fashion design should be to safeguard the originality of the design but not to limit the creativity. So, to do that the law should be in such a way that it should provide chance to get the design from the inspired bys rather than directly practicing knock-offs.

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REFERENCES
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Gibaldi, J., 2010. Handbook of Writers of Research Papers. 7th e.d. Modern Language Association of India. Goddard, W. and Melville, S., 2004. Research Methodology: An Introduction.2nd e.d. Juta and Company Ltd. Growers, A. and Great Britain Treasury. 2006. Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. The Stationery Office. Harrigan, R. K., 1983. Research Methodologies for Contingency Approaches to Business Strategy. The Academy of Management Review, 8(3), pp.398-405. Intellectual Property Law. n.d. Available at: <http://www.hg.org/intell.html> [Accessed 1 June 2012]. IP and business: Intellectual Property in the Fashion Industry, World Intellectual Organization, 2005. [online] Available at: Property <

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APPENDIX I
Questionnaire for Interview Dear Participants I am conducting this research project as a part of my academic course work. This research is mainly conducted in order to analyze the importance of Intellectual property rights in the fashion industry and how the creations could be safeguarded from infringement. I assure you that all the information provided by you would be kept quite confidential and that would be used only for this research purpose. 1. Did you learn anything about IP rights in college during the course of study?

2. What did you learn?

3. Do you feel you missed out on the subject?

4. Next to the things you learned in college, do you know anything else?

5. What do you think about the IP protection in India?

6. Will this hold you back in terms of producing in India?

7. Do you think there should be more information about this for young designers?

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