MELBOURNE: Kookai Australia has launched a preemtive strike against competitors attempting to knock off its creations.
The womenswear retailer has committed to a long-term strategy of registering its designs, with the first batch of protected product hitting stores earlier this month. Once a registered design has been certified, the company can take legal action against what it sees as an “increase” in the number of retailers copying its garments.
Kookai Australia marketing representative Danielle Truter said approximately 60 designs had been registered as part of the February drop, with in-house designers already filing applications for future deliveries.
“We want to protect our brand reputation, our designers and our customers’ right to purchase an original Kookai design instead of a cheap version by a retailer that has copied our designs,” she said. “We intend on filing design applications on the majority of our products.”
Once a new concept has been approved for production, the Kookai creative team will automatically file a design application. Truter confirmed each design was then registered for a period of 5 years, with an option to renew for a further 5 years.
“The application process is quite extensive and given we deliver new designs into store every week we are often filing them on a regular basis,” she said. “Despite this lengthy process, we strongly believe this procedure is well worth it, given we invest a lot of time designing and developing our product.”
According to IP Australia, the government agency responsible for administering design rights, each application costs $200 while the renewal of a design registration is $275. If the registration owner believes its intellectual property has been enroached by a competitor, it can move to have the case examined for $360.
Truter said the investment of both time and money is well worth the effort for Kookai Australia, which is “100 per cent designed in Melbourne” by a team of five designers.
“Even given the fees incurred by this process, we believe the benefit of protecting Kookai intellectual property with this initiative far outweighs the costs,” she said. “We are a very creative company and the design process is very organic. When developing new collections, our design team identify key trends and prints to focus the collection around.”
Highlights from the Kookai autumn 2010 range include a ‘city scope’ tank dress in an abstracted print of black and white; a ruffle tank with a kaleidescope pattern of indigo, charcoal, grey rose and white; and a high-waisted ‘camilla’ maxi skirt in blurred florals of rose, burnt ochre and dark green.
Kookai currently operates 29 stores across New Zealand and Australia.
Assia Benmedjdoub