Susan Scafidi, academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law, was quoted in Quartz about the recent Apple-Samsung case over design patents and how the Supreme Court’s ruling may encourage more counterfeit goods.
Susan Scafidi, the academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University School of Law, says it’s “definitely a victory for copyists” and could lead to more knockoffs.
“That rule was designed to make sure copyists didn’t just treat the possibility of a lawsuit or payment of damages as an incidental business expense,” Scafidi says. “Now, with damage awards limited to the percentage of profits attributable to the copying, design patents are much less valuable to creators. Not only are the potential awards or settlements lower, but the costs of calculating and litigating the amount of damages are higher.”