Kmart and Shein have challenged both the originality and ownership of the designs at the centre of an intellectual property (IP) case brought by fashion label Sabo Skirt, as proceedings continue in Australia’s Federal Court.
According to a report on ABC News Australia, Sabo Skirt and related IP rights holder Larry and Luke filed the claim in February, targeting 19 businesses over the alleged reproduction of designs, patterns, prints and trademarks across 36 garments.
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Seven of those defendants have since been removed from the proceedings, leaving Shein’s Australian arm, Kmart; online retailers Billy J and Selfie Leslie; and a Singaporean wholesaler linked to Shein as the remaining respondents — all of whom have denied the allegations.
In filings before the court, both Kmart and Shein argued that the disputed designs lacked the novelty required for copyright protection, contending that they were not “new and distinctive”.
Kmart submitted close to 50 images predating Sabo Skirt’s registration of its “shoreline design” — a lobster, shell and leaf print on a white background registered with IP Australia on 17 October 2024 — asserting that the earlier works were “identical or substantially similar” to them.
Shein advanced a parallel argument in relation to the Terazza design, a maxi A-line dress with spaghetti straps, a wide tie back and rickrack-lined panels, citing nine earlier works, including five from Australian label Zimmermann.
Shein further argued that any distinctions between the Terazza design and those prior works constituted only “immaterial details, or in features which are variants commonly used in the fashion trade”.
Both defendants contended that these findings rendered the designs unregistrable under the law.
Kmart and Selfie Leslie separately questioned Larry and Luke’s ownership of the garments and their standing to register the designs.
Selfie Leslie denied having sold one of the garments it was alleged to have copied, and maintained that the remaining three were sourced as finished goods from China.
The retailer stated it had no awareness of Sabo Skirt’s designs before receiving letters of demand from the brand’s legal representatives, and that it subsequently withdrew the products from sale, halted imports and handed over remaining stock to those lawyers.
Billy J, which faces allegations relating to the highest number of garments in the original claim at 11, denied wholly or substantially reproducing Sabo Skirt’s designs.
It also rejected assertions that it had reverse-engineered the brand’s garments, acted with knowledge of any copyright infringement, or produced goods that could cause consumers to associate the two labels.
The case is scheduled to return before the Federal Court in Queensland on 7 July.
Separately, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission last month opened an inquiry into Shein concerning the transfer of European users’ personal data to China.
The investigation was launched under Section 110 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and concerns Infinite Styles Services, the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters based in Dublin.
