Agnieszka Witońska-Pakulska
Legal advisor, manager of the Intellectual Property Department at Pakulski, Kilarski i Wspólnicy Legal Office, specialises in Intellectual Property Law, with particular interest in copyright, trademark, and unfair competition.
MEMBER OF ECTA – EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES TRADEMARK ASSOCIATION.
MEMBER OF INTA – INTERNATIONAL TRADEMARK ASSOCIATION.
I acquired by legal education at the Faculty of Law, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. During my studies, I completed the American Law Program at the same faculty, while after traineeship and successful qualification exam, I continued my education at the Fashion Law Bootcamp, Fashion Law Institute, Fordham University, New York, and did a post-graduate course in Management specialising in the fashion offered by the Kozminski University and ViaModa.
I provide legal services to Polish and foreign entities operating in the fashion sector (in English), including fashion houses, clothing companies, fashion accessories producers, jewellers, designers, photographers, as well as advertising and modelling agencies. I advise on developing corporate social responsibility mechanisms.
Nowadays, a lawyer is not just a person with excellent knowledge of the law, legal theory, and the jurisdiction. Lawyers must also understand the business sector of their clients. Therefore, specialisations in the legal sector become important. Fashion law is one of my specialisations. This is why I am often referred to as a fashion lawyer, or a lawyer specialising in services for the fashion industry.
What is fashion law?
This is not in fact a separate area of the law, just the existing areas of the law, such as intellectual property, contract law, or labour law, appropriately applied to the specificity of the fashion sector.
You can find out more about fashion law in my interview with Agnieszka Bednarek from FashionExpress, to be heard on Spotify at the e-obuwie channel.
Since the beginning of my professional career, I have dealt with intellectual property, e-commerce, as well as personal data. I have decided to specialise in clients from the fashion sector because of my interests and love for fashion. Contrary to what one may expect, interest in fashion is of major importance when supporting entities from the fashion industry. Monitoring trends is helpful when assessing the proprietary nature of designs, and the awareness of the market specificity allows formulating contracts tailored to my clients’ needs.
Owing to my understanding of the specificity of the sector, I can provide legal aid to designers, fashion houses, clothing companies, photographers, make-up artists, stylists, models, modelling agencies, advertising agencies, and beauty sector businesses.
Why flcatwalk?
I have long intended to write a blog devoted to the fashion law. Finding the right name was not easy. I wanted my blog to be a sort of a catwalk for legal issues related to the fashion industry, to touch upon current topics and issues important to the sector. Hence the name “fashion law catwalk”, abbreviated to “flcatwalk”.
At my blog, I deal with issues related to trademarks, industrial designs, copyright, and contracts. Our goal is to explain sometimes rather complex legal issues in a reader-friendly manner.
We also comment on the actions taken by fashion brands, and about court proceedings on foreign markets.
The fashion industry needs dedicated legal services, and entities operating in the fashion sector should know some basic legal institutions characteristic of the sector.