Stella McCartney Granted Design Patent

The Fashion Law Exclusive - It is beginning to look like design patents are the way to go for designers since the U.S. has yet to pass any sort of protection against design piracy. The latest to rely on patent protection: Stella McCartney. The London-based company applied for the U.S. patent in November 2011, and was granted a patent this week for part of the design of her best selling Lucia mesh and polka dot dress, which is from her Fall 2012 collection. We have seen quite a few design patents as of late, namely for parts of handbags and shoes, but this is the first (in awhile) for a garment. 

McCartney's dress (left) & her USPTO drawing (right)

So, what does the patent protection extend to exactly in this case? Oklahoma University College of Law professor and our favorite IP law expert, Sarah Burstein, told us: "The dotted portion of the dress (including the dots themselves) are claimed; the rest is not. So, if someone else made a dress with the same dotted portions, Stella McCartney could claim infringement—no matter what the rest of the dress looked like. It could be patterned, cut-out, have some crazy kick-pleat, etc. But to be clearly infringing, the dotted portions would have to have be in the same shape and have the same pattern. If someone used huge polka dots, stripes, etc. in that same configuration, he would have a good non-infringement argument. So, this patent is actually pretty narrow."