Protecting your creative spark: 101

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. I can find little argument with the premise.
I cannot deny that the one occasion when a schoolmate turned up to my house bearing my self-designed (and still unpatented) "mork" hairstyle - involving clips, sticks and a good dollop of mud - didn't really bust my chops. However, I have to confess that should a lone individual be ill enough, nay, perhaps unstable enough, to want to recreate my own "unique" sense of style, hell, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Indeed, the very fabric of the rag trade is predicated on the notion of imitation. How else would designers get their wares from catwalk to high street?
However, imitation definitely fails to flatter when it is perpetrated from one designer or manufacturer to another.
If you're a designer, a member of a design team or the owner of a label who has shed blood and parted with millions of dollars to create a unique selling point for your brand, imitation is simply forgery. Forgery is theft. And theft is, quite simply, desYou will have read in this edition of Ragtrader, South American activewear company Columbia Sportswear is the latest high profile label to fall victim to this insidious disease. But it is by no means the first.
Most high profile global brands - including Diesel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Adidas et al - have had to grapple with heartless scum seeking to trade off their good name at one time or another.
The Australian distributor of popular US label Von Dutch was so incensed at the amount of counterfeit goods here, he threw up his hands and withdrew the label from Australia altogether.
In Columbia's case, organised rings of God knows how many people across at least four different countries (and they're just the ones we know of) have seized on the popularity of the brand and produced millions of knock-offs bearing the company's logo. Unlicensed pants, jackets and shirts were found in fashion retail chains in New South Wales and South Australia and a total of four raids were carried out, uncovering counterfeit Columbia apparel valued at $1 million in Australia alone.
While the company has done well to expose the tail end of this long and incredibly complex counterfeit trail, Columbia's findings are likely to be just the small tip of an incredibly large iceberg.
Laws such as the Trade Marks Act (which carries a maximum penalty for individuals of up to $55,000 and/or two years imprisonment), the Designs Act (fines of up to $6,600), the Copyright Act (fines of up to $60,500 and five years imprisonment) and Trade Practices Act (fines of up to $1.1 million) have acted as a deterrent against some naïve retailers who have failed to do their homework before sourcing their stock.
However, authorities both here and overseas must do more to stop the process at its source. Officials entering a premise suspected of either manufacturing or selling counterfeit apparel should be given the authority to seize all goods upon arrival. They should also be given the power to put the businesses out of action immediately with the alleged counterfeiters then being given a specified period of up to 14 days in which to either prove the goods are genuine or have their operating licence revoked.
At present no regulatory body, authority or individual has the power to seize goods off another without a court order. Complainants must first obtain an order to seize or destroy the goods, providing strong evidence in support of their claims. On average, court orders take at least a week to come through. After which it falls to the state police to ensure the order is carried out.
But not all the onus to stamp out this behaviour lies on those seeking to make a quick buck and those attempting to stop them. Apparel manufacturers themselves must also be willing to do their bit by taking out Customs Notices that allows customs officials to seize product that infringes registered trademarks. At $10,000 they're not cheap, but what price exclusivity?