Copyrighting : A costly affair

Is design copyrighting important for the Indian textile and garment exporters? Reena Mital speaks to industry experts to find out

Designers in the west are very particular about protecting their designs, copyright laws are very strict, and copycats can be heavily sued. With most of the textile and apparel production shifting to this side of the globe, one would expect a similar trend emerging here too. But that is far from happening, as yet.

According to Mr Satish Katta, president, Rajasthan Home Textile Exporters Association, “At the recently held Heimtextil in Mumbai, most of the Indian exhibitors had a problem of protecting their designs from the Chinese visitors and exhibitors, who would come into our stalls, try and photograph our products that were on display, and the same is then copied exactly, and offered at a much lower price to our customers. There is nothing much we can do today to protect our designs.”

Agrees Mr Anish Doshi, director, Textrade, a home textile exporter, “We always talk of design being India’s strength, and the only way to compete with China, but where is the infrastructure to protect the same being copied by China? It is almost impossible for the industry to go for patenting and copyrighting its designs, it is too costly an affair. There needs to be a fast and cost-effective solution for this.” Agrees Mr Amit Goyal, president, Confederation of Indian Apparel Exporters (CIAE), “There is no way we can really protect our designs. Once we have developed a design inhouse, we have to give it to the printers, who works for a large number of exporters and domestic players, and gives away this design to others. There have been times when slight variations of the same designs have been found in factories of different exporters. There is definitely a need for some system whereby such designs can be protected. In the years to come, buyers could well be insisting that their designs are well protected from such copies and infringement.”

At present, an international buyer will give his designs to an exporter who has to develop the same. The exporter sometimes has to give an undertaking that the design will be protected, but there is no strict compliance to that, due to the present order of the textile industry. Besides, the buyers also insist that the garments that are rejected or are surplus are mutilated. Says Mr Rahul Mehta, “Buyers are more interested in protecting their brand name, and in avoiding misuse of their labels. So, they insist that the surpluses and rejects are mutilated, the labels are torn off the garments and then sold. For all practical purposes, this is what is happening in the industry. But yes, this will get important in the days to come.”

However, Mr Venukrishnan, commercial director, Leela Scottish Lace, disagrees. “Most of the exporters are fabricating the designs given to them by their buyers, there is very little original design input going in. Besides, these designs last best for a season or two. And textile and garment manufacturers do a lot of designing, which does not necessarily last for more than a season or two, the costs of protecting such designs would be too big.”

He further stated that all fashion and design is ultimately inspirational. “It is common knowledge that US designers travel to Europe to look at the trends, European designers go to the US, India, etc, and Indian and Chinese designers do the same. It is all about making the designs look different.”