Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Re: Replica jewelry

It's impossible to fully answer the question without more detail. Two intellectual property rights are potentially involved here, trademarks and copyrights.

If you are not using the trademarks, that is, not using the brand name or what's known as its trade dress, then you may be able to avoid trademark issues. Simply not using the brand name, however, is not enough to avoid this trap.

If the brand has also copyrighted its designs, you may have issues there.

The bottom line is that if you are trading on the success of a rights holder you are probably running afoul of the law. Simply calling it "replica" should not be seen as giving anyone license to violate a brand owner's IP rights.

Re: Replica jewelry

I fully agree with Mr. Browde, but will add that patent rights can also be infringed by replica jewelry. If the original jeweler has a valid design patent, a replica may well run afoul of that, as well as of trademark and copyright.

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