LA Copyright Society

Upcoming Event:

May 21, 2025 at 12:30 pm

via Zoom

The IP of Fakes and Fashion

Whereas most major content industries rely on increasingly powerful IP protections for their products, the multibillion dollar global fashion enterprise remains a puzzle for IP rights. Brand owners rely mostly on trademark rights to protect everything from the designs of products to that more intangible concept of authenticity, but resale is a booming enterprise in the world of escalating prices for luxury goods and consumer demand for more sustainable alternatives. Meanwhile, fast fashion cycles are only getting faster with better copying technology, enabling copying of styles from the moment designers show them on the runway.

Join us for a lively debate on authenticity, copying, fast fashion, and “dupe culture” with Professor Kal Raustiala (author of The Piracy Paradox, co-authored with Chris Sprigman) and John Dombrowski, Associate General Counsel at the word’s largest e-commerce consignment platform, The RealReal. The discussion will be moderated by Colin Bennett, General Counsel of SKIMS, the apparel line co-founded by Kim Kardashian.

Colin Bennett is General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of SKIMS, an apparel brand founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens and Emma Grede, based out of LA. Prior to SKIMS he was general counsel of HelloFresh. He is a recent NY to LA transplant and not regretting the move—in his free time he enjoys exploring all the local hiking with his wife and daughter.

John Dombrowski is the Associate General Counsel for Compliance and IP at The RealReal, the world’s largest online marketplace for authenticated, resale luxury goods. He joined the company in 2018 and supported its 2019 IPO with a broad slate of compliance initiatives. John also established the IP harvesting and rewards program and is a listed inventor on ten patent applications. Prior to TRR he worked for PSEG-LI and Apple. John received his J.D. from Santa Clara University and lives in the Bay Area with his wife and four cats.

Kal Raustiala is the Promise Distinguished Professor of International and Comparative Law at UCLA Law School and the author, among other works, of The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation (Oxford 2012); The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design, Virginia Law Review (2006); Rethinking Post-Sale Confusion, The Trademark Reporter (2018); and Culture and Cosmopolitanism in the Fashion Industry, in Jeanne Fromer and David Tan, eds., Fashion and Intellectual Property (forthcoming, 2025), all co-authored with Chris Sprigman of NYU Law School.