Woodland sues Hidesign over sling bag design

New
Delhi: Aero Group, the parent company of footwear and apparel manufacturer,
Woodland India, and Hidesign India Pvt. Ltd are locked in a legal battle over
the design of a classic sling bag which the latter claims has been copied by
Aero, leading to charges of copyright infringement of the product sold by both
companies. Last week, Aero filed a Rs.10 crore defamation suit in the Delhi
high court against Hidesign, the Puducherry-based leather bags and accessories
maker, which had sued shoes and apparel manufacturer Aero (Woodland) for
copyright infringement and made the case public through a report. In the
report, Hidesign was reported as alleging that Woodland was retailing a
“copied” version of its 2010 range of sling bags, called the “Vespucci”. Aero
also sued The Economic Times. In its legal notice to Woodland, Hidesign claimed
sole ownership of copyrights in the artistic work over the designs, sketches
and drawings (of its products) giving itself exclusive right to reproduce and
distribute products under Section 14 of Copyright Act, 1957. Woodland, which
operates 400 stores in the country, claimed the charges were baseless and
flawed. In response to the notice saying there was “misinterpretation” of the
Copyright Act on behalf of Hidesign, the retailer claimed the bag’s design is
“generic” and used by different brands. Amol Dhillon, vice-president of
planning and strategy at Woodland, said the company had been selling the sling
bag since 2006-07. “You cannot claim that it is copied. This design has been in
use for many years by brands across the world. The (allegation) is very far
from the truth and we must make it known that we INVEST huge resources into
creating original designs,” he said. As a sales and MARKETING exercise,
Woodland, however, modifies or upgrades its products annually. The bag’s design
was only recently noticed by Hidesign. Dilip Kapur, president at Hidesign, said
over the phone that Vespucci was created by the company’s design team in 2010.
“It is a highly detailed piece, with a lot of specific elements, and we found
the same exact looking bag a few months ago at a Woodland store,” Kapur said.
Both bags are priced at Rs.5,495. Kapur said the design of the bag was under
copyright, although he did not share details of the copyright protection.
Woodland, meanwhile, said that since the bag is an industrially produced work,
it does not have any such protection. To be sure, copyright laws are applicable
to more “aesthetic” works that are original and creative such as those related
to art, music, books, etc., explained experts on the subject. “Firstly, it is
important to appreciate that copyright and design protection are quite distinct
and protected through separate laws,” said Shamnad Basheer, an expert on
intellectual property rights (IPR) laws and founder at SpicyIP, a blog on IPR.
Unlike copyright protection, which arises automatically the moment a work of
art is created, in order for designs to be protected, they need to be registered
under the Designs Act. Design protection is valid only for 15 years, which is
far shorter than copyright protection. In order to avoid overlapping protection
between the two regimes, copyright law clearly provides that the moment any
design is industrially produced more than 50 times, it ceases to enjoy
copyright protection as a work of art. Ameet Datta, a partner at law firm
Saikrishna and Associates, said this is a complex issue. “Attempts have been
made in earlier cases to draw a distinction between a design per se and its
underlying drawing and claiming that the root drawing is an artistic work and
consequently should be protected as a copyrighted work. However, courts have
earlier said that there is a difference between a work which is made purely for
artistic merit and a work which is in essence a “manufacturing instruction”. I
would say that while it is not an open-and-shut case, it’s a tough one.” The
legislative intent is quite clear: copyright law protects works of art that are
not meant to be industrially applied. Whereas design law protects only those
patterns, ornamentations and designs that are meant to be applied to industrial
articles, Basheer explained. In the case at hand, he said, “it would appear
that if Hidesign had not registered their design under the Designs Act, then
they are effectively left with no IP protection at all. Neither design
protection (since they have not registered) nor copyright protection, since
they have produced more than 50 pieces of their bags.” Hidesign’s legal team
declined to comment on the matter further as they are not authorized to do so
or share details of the case. The company, in which French luxury goods
retailer Louis Vuitton Moet Henessy (LVMH) took a stake through its venture arm
L-Capital in 2007, asked Woodland to stop copying designs of the bag at the
earliest in its notice.