The garment industry in Los Angeles is currently going through a transition period. The tag “Made in China” is becoming more prevalent as minimum wage rises and domestic sewing and textile companies struggle to survive dwindling profit margins.

In comparison to rising expenses and costs to manufacture garments in Los Angeles, countries such as China apply lax legal policies in favor of businesses to produce more garments using fewer financial resources. As a result, many garment manufacturers that focus their business on quantity rather than quality in the wholesale market are now relying heavily toward foreign-based sewing and textile companies to keep their businesses afloat.

Unfortunately it is not all rosy for these garment manufacturers importing textiles from foreign companies. For one, most foreign textile companies do not guarantee copyright ownership of textiles and their designs. As a result, a number of garment manufacturers are being sued for copyright infringements and end up defending not just their claims, but also their retail customers’ claims pursuant to their indemnity agreements.

In an effort to circumvent any copyright issues, some domestic garment manufacturers have taken questionable measures to protect their business interests. The most common way has been to modify or change certain portions of the original textile design purchased from foreign textile companies to try to make it more original. In most instances, such revision efforts have not been successful where there has been substantially similar textile design that already had been registered with the copyright office.