Trade dress

Courtesy of Cornell Design League

Trade dress was originally developed to trademark the packaging of a product. It has been used to protect apparel designs in cases where the unique or distinctive combination of colors, designs, or other features make a garment or sewn product instantly recognizable.

Trade dress

• protects the outwardly visible appearance of the whole or part of actual apparel design resulting from features of lines, contours, colors, style, silhouette, shape, texture and other components of a design
• requires that either a style or secondary meaning is already imprinted in the mind of consumers
• protects clothing only to the extent that decorative features can be separated from clothing's utilitarian aspects.
• protection is potentially unlimited in time. It continues for as long as the trademark or trade dress is in use

One case involving the trade dress law was Columbia Sportswear against Orvis for copying one of the parkas in its core lines. The case was settled with Orvis agreeing to immediately stop selling the parka and removing it from its product line.

For another interesting example of a trade dress dispute, see Samara Brothers vs. Wal-Mart.