Biswajit Sarkar, a lawyer in India, is filing a lawsuit against nuns who he claims to have “unauthorized use” of Saint Teresa’s trademarked “white, blue-rimmed cotton sari” as a uniform for their religious school. The sari design is intellectual property of the Missionaries of Charity, a global organization that was founded by Saint Teresa decades ago. Saint Teresa was working at a convent in Kolkata in 1931 but left to assist the poor. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for opening Missionaries of Charity which created shelters, hospices, and homes for the poor. Sarkar claims that there are numerous organizations in India that are starting schools under Teresa’s name but have no partnership or connection to Missionaries of Charity. Even though there are no negative tendencies towards using Teresa’s name, Sarkar explains that this is an issue of preserving the identity of Teresa and her charity organization. Therefore, Sarkar aims to copyright Teresa’s name and the sari design in other countries.
Another relative but less saintly case regarding protecting clothing designs is the recent US Supreme Court case of Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, on copyrighting cheerleader uniforms. More specifically, the stripes, color blocks, and chevron patterns that are commonly seen in cheerleaders’ uniforms in Hollywood films. Unlike European countries, the United States doesn’t use copyright laws to protect fashion designs for simple designs and patterns like those on cheerleaders’ uniforms. The best type of action in cases like this is acquiring trademarks and copyright protection for their fashion designs. Varsity has copyrights of over two-hundred patterns of these stripes and chevrons on uniforms and sued Star Athletica, a competing uniform company, for violations under copyright law. In the end, Supreme Court gave a final hooray to Varsity for the copyright of their patterns.