The Fashion Lottery: Cooperative Innovation in Stochastic Markets

Intellectual property rights on creativity and heritage: the case of the fashion industry

“…This more original analysis is justified through the general idea that imitation is necessary or at least useful to decrease economic uncertainty in the fashion sector and, thus, is efficient. It is developed in the line of ''the piracy paradox'' (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006) and ''the cooperative innovation model'' (Barnett et al 2010).…”

“…Our model of anchoring rests on the existence on definable trends… Copying does this by anchoring the new season to a limited number of design themes… Thus anchoring helps fashion-conscious consumers understand (1) when the mode has shifted, (2) what defines the new mode, and (3) what to buy to remain within it'' (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006, 45). The cooperative innovation model (Barnett et al 2010) develops this basic idea in a more sophisticated way. The authors would found on an economic model of the industry the efficiency of low and unequal PR (strong trademark protections and weak copyright, trade dress and design protections).…”

“…Barnett et al (2010) suggest a taxonomy of imitation strategies in the fashion market based on three characteristics: mark, design and quality. According the degree of replication of these three characteristics, three main strategies are identified: ''horizontal imitation'' (equivalent to ''borrow'' or ''reference''), ''legitimate vertical imitation'' (corresponding to ''knockoffs'') and ''illegitimate vertical imitation'' (such as ''fakes'' or ''counterfeits'').…”

The impact of piracy on innovation in the presence of technological and market uncertainty

“…The beneficial aspect also includes the generation of a positive feedback effect on innovation (Easley et al, 2003;El Harbi and Grolleau, 2008). 4 This effect provides direction to innovating firms for further R&D. 5 There can also be tacit reciprocity (Kolm, 2006) in knowledge exchange between the innovating and pirating firms in which case the innovating firm accepts piracy (Barnett, 2005;Raustiala and Sprigman, 2006;Barnett et al, 2010). In this paper, we ignore such positive feedback effects and reciprocity, and investigate whether piracy can enhance R&D investment.…”

Global Growth from an Investor’s Point of View - Initial Public Offerings in the Fashion and Accessories Industry

“…The fashion and leather accessories industry exhibits a very heterogeneous business structure (Barnett, Grolleau, & El Harbi, 2010). On the one hand, a few large, internationally diversified conglomerates such as LVMH, Phillips-Van Heusen and PPR regularly add further brands to their portfolios and steadily increase company sizes.…”