By Nandita Goyal, Partner, RM Legal
28 October 2026
Surat produces thousands of new prints and patterns every season, and copies often reach the market within weeks. Many textile businesses assume that because a print is an original artwork, copyright law protects it. For prints intended for production, that assumption can leave them with no protection at all.
The 50-Article Rule
A print or pattern is an artistic work, and copyright arises automatically when it is created. However, section 15(2) of the Copyright Act, 1957 contains an important limit. Where a design is capable of registration under the Designs Act, 2000 but has not been registered, copyright in it ceases once the design has been applied to more than 50 articles by an industrial process.
For a textile business, more than 50 metres of printed fabric is a very small run. In practice, an unregistered print that goes into commercial production can lose copyright protection almost immediately.
What the Supreme Court Has Said
In Cryogas Equipment v. Inox India (April 2025), the Supreme Court set out a two-step approach. First, decide whether the work is a pure artistic work, or a design derived from an artistic work and applied industrially. Second, if it is a design, consider whether its primary purpose is visual appeal, which design law protects, or function. For printed fabric produced at scale, the result usually points to design law.
What Design Registration Gives You
- What is protected: the shape, configuration, pattern, ornamentation or composition of lines or colours applied to an article, judged by the eye. Textile piece goods fall in Class 05 of the Locarno Classification used for design applications.
- How long it lasts: 10 years from the filing date, extendable once by five years.
- What it covers: applying the registered design, or a fraudulent or obvious imitation of it, without consent is piracy under the Designs Act. The owner can claim a fixed sum of up to ₹25,000 for each contravention, capped at ₹50,000 for any one design, or can sue for damages and an injunction.
The Novelty Trap
A design can only be registered if it is new and has not been published or used before the filing date. Showing a print to buyers, putting it on display at a trade fair, posting it on social media or selling it before filing can make it impossible to register. Filing must come before the print goes public.
A Practical Approach for Textile Businesses
- Prioritise: register the prints you expect to sell in volume, or that competitors are likely to copy.
- File early: file before samples are circulated or the collection is launched.
- Get it in writing: make sure designers, whether employees or freelancers, have assigned their rights to the business in writing.
- Keep records: keep dated records of each design's creation.
- Use other rights too: protect the brand separately with a trademark, which design registration does not cover.
Our advice: before samples of a new collection go to buyers, agents or trade fairs, pick the prints you expect to sell in volume and file design applications for them first. Once a print is public it can no longer be registered, and stopping a copy that has already reached the market is far harder than preventing it.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.