Leading the fight for your rights

Once she took on Mrs Thatcher; now Katharine Hamnett,the queen of the slogan T-shirt, is on a new mission, enraged by the abuse, as she sees it, of intellectual property rights. By Eleanor Cowie.

KATHARINE Hamnett is incensed. But for once the clothing designer and environmental campaigner is not exercised over the evils of the fashion industry, pesticide poisoning in cotton production or nuclear weapons. Instead, she is enraged by the abuse, as she sees it, of intellectual property (IP) rights - patents, copyright and trademarks.

It's somewhat hard to imagine when you consider this is the same woman who, in 1984, shimmied her way into Downing Street to meet then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, wearing a T-shirt saying, "58% don't want Pershing" (referring to nuclear missiles). It was a spectacular fashion comedy moment, of which there are sadly very few. The iconic nature of the image - we could all see who was the real Iron Lady - can't fail to provoke a wry smile even now.

Hamnett was shunned by much of the fashion industry in the 1990s when she tried to persuade fellow designers to switch to organic cotton, explaining that tens of thousands of people every year were dying from pesticide poisoning from cotton farming. But she now has a deal to produce a range of her Katharine Hamnett clothing in organic cotton for Tesco.

Hamnett has temporarily stepped down from her soapbox to talk about the ethics of law as part of World Intellectual Property Day, which takes place today. In typical style, though, she is ardent and articulate about the subject. Later this afternoon, the svelte, dark-haired 59-year-old will address members of Scotland's business and law communities in Edinburgh.

"I've chosen to talk at this event because I've made my living from intellectual property rights since I was 21. And also because I'm a female entrepreneur and, frankly, I'd love to share my knowledge of IP - or ignorance of it, more likely," she says jovially, before her clipped, Cheltenham Ladies College accent takes on a more serious tone. "Also, some sanity and sense needs to be injected into this debate. I mean, patenting human genes for research? That is a criminal abuse of the patent law. It's insanity, it's just out of control."

The insanity to which she refers chiefly concerns the patenting of genes with proven links to diseases such as breast cancer. "In many respects, I think intellectual property law is generally inhibiting human progress," says Hamnett. "Too much power has gone to giant companies. Patenting a human gene is like patenting the wheel, or fire."

Today's event, called Encouraging Creativity, has been organised by the law firm Maclay Murray and Spens, which stresses that intellectual property law is important for small businesses as well as for large companies.

"Intellectual property concerns the protection of a company or individuals' rights," says Fiona Nicolson, intellectual property and technology partner with the firm. "For instance, patents protect inventions; trademarks protect logos, names, sounds and scents of products or services; copyright protects artistic, computerised, graphical and musical work; and designs protect a design of clothing or hardware.

"Katharine is unique - she has a valuable message on how to make the most out of your brand."

It was Hamnett who pioneered the statement T-shirt design - which she so effectively modelled all those years ago in Number 10. The idea has remained popular ever since. Only yesterday, 20,000 Anya Hindmarch designer reusable cotton bags bearing the slogan "I'm not a plastic bag" sold out within an hour at Sainsbury's stores.

In the wake of Hamnett's first slogan designs, the concept was copied by numerous designers. "Garments we produced were copied all the time," she says. "In the early days, I would sue for each garment, sometimes even twice per item, but I really got so fed up with it and I thought, wouldn't it be fun to turn it around? So we produced T-shirts which said environmental, social and political slogans and we thought if these were copied it would be hysterical and good for society. And copied they were. It was surprisingly gratifying having them copied; quite hilarious."

That said, Hamnett has her limits. Right now, she is taking legal action against anti-abortion campaigners for using her "Choose Life" T-shirt design for their own ends (Hamnett supports a woman's right to choose).

The idea for the statement T-shirts was originally borne out of political disillusionment: "At that point, our slogans were considered very radical. I think the whole political system is useless. I believe you have far more influence as a maverick than stuck in a political party with a three-line whip."

But, asks Fiona Nicolson, where were Hamnett's intellectual property rights when her slogan T-shirts were being copied? "It is difficult to protect a concept, which in Hamnett's case was slogan T-shirts. What she sought to protect was her name. It is that name - Katharine Hamnett - which signed the Tesco deal. The slogan T-shirts are examples of her work. You cannot patent a concept, such as slogan T-shirts, although the design of a T-shirt can be protected. What is important in these cases is the way she's built up her own brand, which has stood the test of time."

Hamnett believes intellectual property forms an essential part of a business's success. "I'd say to anyone with ideas, register your trademark as soon as you can. Even though it is expensive, it is worth it. Or if you can't afford to register a trademark, a lot of young entrepreneurs find themselves big on ideas and short on cash - take an internet domain name and then it is harder for a company to copy your idea or products if you have those domain names."

"Your brand name is really worth hanging on to," she continues. "I wouldn't have been able to do the T-shirt slogans if we hadn't been independent. Lots of high-profile companies no longer own their brand name. Even Chanel ended up with only a small percentage of its perfume rights. So it pays to own your name."

Intellectual property is "extre- mely important", says Nicolson. "The value of businesses is now in intangible assets and not in the tangible ones." She cites Microsoft as an example. "If businesses in Scotland are going to make it, each needs to understand and capitalise on the value of intangible assets: or, in other words, their intellectual property."