In an industry where speed-to-market, trend responsiveness and distinctive aesthetics are everything, understanding how design law can protect your latest collection is crucial. A recent CJEU ruling in Deity Shoes v Mundorama Confort & Stay Design (Case C‑323/24) offers timely, commercially important guidance for fashion and footwear brands.
The judgment confirms that:
Fashion trends do not limit a designer’s freedom, and
Design protection does not require creativity or originality, only novelty and individual character.
Although a decision of Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the judgment is highly relevant for UK designers too. The core principles at stake remain central to UK design law, making this a persuasive and commercially meaningful development for anyone bringing new designs to market.
Key takeaway for fashion and luxury brands
Fashion designers enjoy broad creative freedom, even when their work is influenced by prevailing trends or aesthetics, such as “quiet luxury” or the revival of Y2K styles. However, this freedom comes with a challenge: it can raise the bar for protecting those designs under design law.
When a trend saturates the market, products start to look increasingly alike. This expands and homogenises the “design corpus” - the pool of existing designs used as the reference point for assessing novelty and individual character. In such a crowded aesthetic landscape, it becomes significantly harder to show that a new design creates the required “distinct overall impression.” The Deity judgment confirms that fashion trends do not amount to a formal limit on the freedom of a product designer. This makes it harder to argue that minor differences in a new design are enough to create a different overall impression against a crowded, trend-driven landscape.
Put simply: the more crowded the trend space, the higher the threshold for demonstrating distinctiveness. This dynamic inherently favours trendsetters, whose early designs stand out more clearly at the point of seeking protection and will then be compared broadly with potentially infringing designs, even if the trend the original design kickstarted has been widely adopted. By contrast, brands whose designs are heavily shaped by widespread trends may find it more difficult to secure meaningful protection for features that do not reflect their own unique design language.
Considerations for IP strategy
1. Securing protection
If you haven’t registered your design, enforcing your rights becomes much harder when many brands release similar trend‑driven pieces. Unregistered routes typically have a higher bar for proving infringement: in addition to similarity between the infringing product and the protected design, you will need to show direct copying (for unregistered designs) or a misrepresentation as to the origin of the product (for passing off). When a trend floods the market, distinctiveness is diluted and it becomes harder to provide a direct link to a specific design.
2. Timing is crucial
Trend cycles, particularly micro‑trends driven by social media, can move from emergence to saturation quickly. This means:
The commercial window for enforcement is brief.
The value of a registration is front‑loaded: most useful during the high‑sales, high‑exposure period.
Early filing is essential if you want to enforce during the trend’s peak.
Not every trend‑influenced design needs protection for the full term of a registered design. It can be more effective touse selective registration to protect commercially significant designs including signature, brand-defining elements expected to outlast the trend and that contribute to lasting brand identity.
3. Potential changes to UK designs law
The ongoing UK designs consultation includes proposals that could affect filing strategy. Notably, extended deferment options may allow a longer gap between filing and publication, letting brands secure early protection while keeping designs confidential until closer to launch. If implemented, this would make early filing even more advantageous for trend‑driven fashion businesses.
Conclusion and overall strategic takeaways
As trend‑driven aesthetics spread, competing products begin to look increasingly similar. This crowding effect makes it harder for brands to demonstrate that new designs are sufficiently distinctive, raising the bar for registered design protection.
For fashion and luxury brands, the key to successful IP strategy is aligning protection efforts with the rhythm of the trend cycle. The earliest entrants in a trend retain the clearest space to stand out, while later iterations face diminishing legal distinctiveness and a shortened commercial window for enforcement (if they are able to secure valid protection).
Therefore, brands should prioritise early filing, selective registration of brand‑defining elements, and a proactive approach that embeds IP considerations into design and release planning.
We have been closely following the UK designs consultation and will continue to monitor developments. If you would like to discuss the potential impact of the proposed changes in more detail or have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.
