Claim No: IP-2022-000099 - [2025] EWHC 805 (IPEC)

In summary, I dismiss the Claimant’s claim in its entirety. The primary reasons are as follows:

I recognise that Ms. Edwards will be disappointed in this outcome. She has campaigned for some time to shine a light on what she sees as injustice against the small designer in the fashion industry. I have no doubt that her grievances are sincerely held, but she has subjected the Defendants and others to a torrent of complaints over a period of many years. Regrettably, the complaints that I have had to adjudicate are misdirected, either as a matter of fact or law, or both. The Claimant’s submission that the Defendants copied the designs that their legal department possessed as a result of earlier complaints made by her illustrates how extreme her position has become.

I acknowledge that copying undoubtedly takes place within the fashion industry, particularly in fast fashion. Every time the Defendants ask manufacturers to reproduce images found on social media there is a risk of someone’s design right being infringed.

But the stark truth is that there are also only so many ways to design clothing to fit the human body. Given the enormous numbers of articles being churned out by the likes of the Defendants each week, it is completely unsurprising that as a matter of chance, some of these resemble articles designed previously by others, including the Claimant. Further, the abstract way in which the Claimant has described her designs (so that they are barely original) simply increases the chance that they might resemble other garments designed independently. And whilst the probability of chance reproduction in such circumstances is high, the likelihood of a fast fashion company using a social media feed with few followers published many years ago is low. It is for these reasons that I have dismissed the Claimant’s suspicions about alleged copying by the Defendants.

As previously directed, I will hear the parties in relation to any consequential relief on 3^rd April 2025.