As ‘Dupes’ Sell Thick and Fast, Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights Becomes Go-To Strategy for Luxury Sector

NEW YORK, Aug. 19, 2025 — Popular fashion designers who have a firm grip on the latest trends in couture and accessories industry are also keeping a hawk’s eye on product replicas that could spoil their brand identity.

Globally hot-selling designer labels, through their clothing lines continue showcasing an ensemble of styles that are in vogue. Along with creating a style statement, luxury brands are equally focused on protecting their credibility by strategically disassociating the diligently crafted products from the “dupes”.

While mushrooming of the dupes culture has been a dampener in the luxury sector, top multinational brands are showing an urgency to maintain their uniqueness.

Dupes essentially involve replicas of branded products being sold in the open market and on e-commerce platforms but trademarks are the most widely used means by which fashion brands protect themselves.

Who are the Consumers Embracing Dupes?

Industry experts say that connoisseurs of high-end clothes and accessories in the previous generations associated luxury goods with exclusivity.

However, in times of economic uncertainty, there has been a paradigm shift in consumer behavior with GenZ and younger millennial consumers embracing the more economical dupes.

Besides price sensitivity, the key catalyst propelling this buying pattern is that the consumers don’t aim to satiate their needs to possess the “original” item, but to copy the look convincingly enough to brandish it on social media or simply as a style to carry.

With dupes selling thick and fast, a commonly followed practice which has picked up recently is that fashion businesses are using Intellectual Property (IP) in interesting and creative ways. Brands are increasingly relying on design patent protection, even as it is costlier and time consuming to obtain it as compared to copyright protection. Several brands are also utilizing trademark protection to safeguard their brand and trade dress, which is the appearance and packaging of their products.

Industry Laws and Case Studies You Should Know

Preventive Legislation in US: The last decade has seen three different copyright bills proposed to Congress that includes the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (introduced in 2009), the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (introduced in 2010), and the Innovative Design Protection Act (introduced in 2012).

There has been no passage to these bills, with each one of them having proposed amendments to the US Copyright Act to provide sui generis protection for fashion designs.

The bills aimed to remove the “separability” requirement so that designers would no longer have to derive protection from individual creative elements of the design of their garment.

Notably, a key difference between the European Union and US in terms of preventive legislation is that EU has registered and unregistered Community design rights that provide protection for garments and accessories as a whole. This legal shield is not present in the United States, and is a major advantage that European designers have over US designers.

Peculiar Cases: An oft-seen and interesting case study is the “trademark infringement” issue involving French luxury footwear designer Christian Louboutin. The brand has raised the issue of whether it is possible to protect a single color in the fashion industry, in this case red.

Back in 2008, Christian Louboutin acquired trademark rights in the US over the bright-red lacquered sole in bulk of the footwear the designer rolls out. US trademark law (the Lanham Act) allows for the registration of a trademark that consists of a color.

The launch of a monochrome footwear collection in a range of colors, including red by French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) in 2011 drew Louboutin’s ire.

Louboutin filed a lawsuit against YSL claiming infringement of his self-styled red-sole trademark.

In response, YSL challenged whether Louboutin’s color trademark qualified for trademark protection in the first place, claiming it lacked distinctiveness and was purely ornamental.

The zenith of the legal tangle is that, in the United States, Louboutin’s red-sole trademark is limited “to uses in which the red outsole contrasts with the color of the remainder of the shoe” by decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. These cases have led to a number of cases in other countries where Louboutin is seeking to protect his signature red-soled shoes.

With dupes proliferating, top designers are leveraging patents, trademarks, and trade dress to safeguard originality and maintain their edge.

Inputs from Saqib Malik

Editing by David Ryder