Dive Brief:

• Lululemon Athletica is filing an unusual number of fashion design patents and taking aggressive steps to defend them in courts of law.

• The clothing retailer is facing a tougher, more competitive activewear market than in previous years, when it reigned supreme among fashion-conscious yoga enthusiasts with expensive tastes.

• The aggressive legal tactics are reminiscent of the patent dispute between Samsung and Apple over product design, and are being closely watched by many in fashion retail.

Dive Insight:

Just because the U.S. Patent Office issues a patent, doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in court, which is a major reason why many in fashion are watching this issue closely. Trends in fashion move from the runway to the street, and sometimes vice versa; influencing, and to some extent copying, those trends is part of what makes that world turn.

“We’re in a situation where we are not yet sure how valuable design patents are in general, and we’re really not sure how valuable they are for clothing, and Lululemon is becoming the test case,” Susan Scafidi, academic director of the Fordham University’s Fashion Law Institute told BuzzFeed.

For Lululemon’s part, it’s hard to know whether these legal pursuits will help lift its sagging fortunes. Who cares if you own the design to a tank top if nobody’s buying it?