Artificial Intelligence and Fashion Design: Determining Ownership of AI-Generated Fashion Creations Under Intellectual Property Law Tejas Agarwal, Lloyd School Of Law, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence is reshaping fashion design by independently generating fabric patterns, garment structures, and innovative models, creating urgent need for clear ownership frameworks under intellectual property law. This research addresses the critical legal question: who owns AI-generated fashion creations—the designer, programmer, AI user, or does it fall into the public domain? Using doctrinal legal analysis of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, alongside comparative study of U.S., UK, and EU precedents on computer-generated works, this study examines whether AI-created fashion qualifies for protection and who may claim authorship. The findings reveal that all major jurisdictions require human authorship for copyright, rendering purely AI-generated fashion designs unprotected and leaving designers vulnerable to ownership loss without explicit contractual or legislative safeguards. This article proposes immediate legislative amendment recognizing AI-assisted designers as rightful owners, establishing a balanced framework that protects innovation while maintaining IP law’s foundational human-centered principles.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Fashion Design, Intellectual Property Law, Ownership, Designer, Programmer, Indian Copyright Act 1957

1. INTRODUCTION

The fashion industry stands at the precipice of a technological transformation that simultaneously promises unprecedented creative potential and poses profound legal challenges. Artificial intelligence, once confined to data analysis and pattern recognition, has evolved into an autonomous creative agent capable of generating original fabric patterns, conceiving novel garment silhouettes, and designing entire fashion collections without direct human intervention. Machine learning algorithms now produce textile designs that no human hand has ever conceived, while generative AI systems create runway models and fashion visualizations that blur the boundary between human and machine creativity. This paradigm shift represents more than technological advancement—it represents a fundamental reconfiguration of how fashion is created, reproduced, and distributed in the twenty-first century.

Yet this creative revolution has collided with a legal framework built on assumptions of human authorship that no longer hold true. Intellectual property law, particularly copyright jurisprudence, operates on the foundational premise that creation requires a human mind—a creative consciousness that intends, selects, and expresses aesthetic choices. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, mirrors this global consensus by defining authorship in terms that presuppose human agency.[1] When an AI algorithm independently generates a fabric pattern or garment design, the question of who—the designer commissioning the AI, the programmer building the algorithm, the user inputting parameters, or the AI itself—holds creative ownership becomes not merely theoretical but commercially urgent.

The stakes extend beyond academic curiosity. Fashion houses investing millions in AI design technology face existential uncertainty: can they protect their investments if ownership remains ambiguous? Can designers claim exclusive rights over AI-generated collections that may be replicated infinitely without legal consequence? The United States has already begun refusing copyright registrations for purely AI-created works, while the European Union grapples with harmonizing member states’ approaches to computer-generated outputs. The United Kingdom’s unique provision for computer-generated works remains underinterpreted and contested. India, meanwhile, has yet to address this frontier explicitly, leaving designers in legal limbo.

This article addresses a critical and unresolved legal question: Who owns AI-generated fashion creations under intellectual property law—does ownership vest in the designer deploying the AI system, the programmer who developed the algorithm, the user who inputs creative prompts, or do such works fall into the public domain due to absence of qualifying human authorship?

2. Background and Conceptual Framework

2.1 The Legal Architecture Presuming Human Creativity

Intellectual property law, across every major jurisdiction, operates on a foundational jurisprudential assumption: creative works originate from human minds. This human authorship requirement is not merely doctrinal convention but reflects the philosophical purpose of copyright—to incentivise human creativity by granting exclusive rights to those who exercise intellectual effort, aesthetic judgment, and original expression. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 codifies this principle through Section 2(d), which defines “author” across distinct work categories: the literary/dramatic author, the musical composer, the artistic creator, the photographer, the film producer, and the sound recording producer.[2] Critically, Section 2(d)(vi) designates “the person who causes the work to be created” as the author of computer-generated works, yet this provision was drafted in an era when computers functioned as passive tools rather than autonomous creative agents.[3]

The statutory language’s inadequacy becomes acute when confronting contemporary generative AI—systems employing Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Transformer architectures, and deep learning models that independently generate fabric patterns, garment silhouettes, and complete fashion collections without meaningful human intervention.[4] When an AI algorithm makes autonomous aesthetic selections, iteratively refines designs through millions of training iterations, and produces outputs that no human directly conceived, the phrase “causes the work to be created” collapses into interpretive ambiguity. Who “causes” creation: the designer providing vague prompts? The programmer architecting the algorithm? The data scientists curating training datasets? Or does the AI itself constitute the creative agent?

2.2 The RAGHAV Controversy: India’s Unresolved Precedent

The RAGHAV (Robust Artificially Intelligent Graphics and Art Visualizer) controversy exposes the legal incoherence of India’s current framework. In 2020, the Indian Copyright Office initially registered artwork listing AI application “RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App” as co-author alongside human Ankit Sahni—potentially the first global recognition of AI as co-author.[5] This unprecedented registration was subsequently withdrawn when officials recognised the statutory impossibility: Sections 2(d)(iii) and 2(d)(vi) require a “person” or “artist,” terms that presuppose human legal personality under Indian law.[6]  The Office’s reversal, shifting burden to applicants to clarify AI’s legal status, reveals the Copyright Office’s own uncertainty about how to apply statutory provisions drafted half-century ago to technology that fundamentally challenges their conceptual premises.[7]

2.3 International Jurisprudential Developments: Divergent Approaches

The United States has articulated the most rigorous human authorship requirement through the U.S. Copyright Office’s Part 2 Report on Copyrightability (January 2025), explicitly holding that copyright protects only “the product of human creativity” and rejecting claims that prompt engineering constitutes sufficient creative contribution for AI-autonomous outputs.[8] The Thaler v. Perlmutter litigation (2023–2026), culminating in the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in March 2026, cemented that AI cannot be inventor or author under U.S. intellectual property law.[9]

The United Kingdom’s Section 9(3) remains the world’s only explicit statutory provision for computer-generated works, yet faces unprecedented interpretive challenges regarding what constitutes “necessary arrangements” when AI operates autonomously.[10] The European Union’s AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) addresses input-side copyright concerns (training data authorisation) while conspicuously avoiding output-side ownership questions.[11]

3. Legal Analysis

3.1 The Statutory Fiction: When “Causes the Work to Be Created” No Longer Maps to Reality

The arrival of autonomous generative AI systems capable of producing wholly original fabric patterns, garment silhouettes, and complete fashion collections without meaningful human intervention has exposed a structure in intellectual property law never imagined by its drafters. Section 2(d)(vi) of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 designates “the person who causes the work to be created” as the author of computer-generated works, yet this provision catastrophically fails when confronted with genuinely autonomous AI creation.[12] The phrase “causes the work to be created” presupposes a linear causal chain: human intention flows through passive tools to produce output. Contemporary generative AI—employing Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Transformer architectures, and deep learning models—shatters this causal chain by making independent aesthetic selections, iteratively refining designs through millions of training iterations, and generating outputs that no human directly conceived.[13] When an algorithm autonomously generates a fabric pattern that distinguishes itself through non-obvious combinations of colour, texture, and motif, the question of who “caused” creation becomes analytically incoherent.[14]

This statutory inadequacy crystallises through the RAGHAV (Robust Artificially Intelligent Graphics and Art Visualizer) controversy of 2020–2021. The Indian Copyright Office initially registered artwork listing AI application “RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App” as co-author alongside human Ankit Sahni—potentially the first global recognition of AI as co-author.[15] This unprecedented registration was subsequently withdrawn when officials recognised the jurisprudential impossibility: Sections 2(d)(iii) and 2(d)(vi) require a “person” or “artist,” terms that presuppose human legal personality.[16] The Office’s reversal, demanding applicants clarify AI’s “legal status,” exposes the Copyright Office’s own uncertainty about applying fifty-year-old statutory language to technology that fundamentally undermines its conceptual premises.[17]

3.2 Economic Implications: The Cost of Regulatory Uncertainty

Fashion houses investing in AI design face existential uncertainty: can they secure financing? License designs? Defend against replication? The inability to protect investments undermines innovation incentives while enabling technological free-riding.[18]

The policy dilemma involves balancing: incentivising AI innovation versus preserving public access; protecting human creators versus enabling technological progress; preventing monopolies over functional features versus rewarding creative technology investment. Current frameworks cannot achieve this balance because they lack tools to distinguish truly autonomous AI from human-directed AI assistance.[19]

4. Case Law Discussion

4.1 RAGHAV Controversy, Indian Copyright Office (2020–2021)

Facts

Ankit Sahni, an Indian software developer, applied for copyright registration of artwork titled “RAGHAV” listing “RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App” as co-author alongside himself. The Indian Copyright Office initially registered the artwork in 2020, marking potentially the first global precedent recognising AI as co-author in intellectual property law. However, in December 2021, the Office issued a withdrawal notice demanding clarification on AI’s legal status and whether AI could be considered a “person” under the Copyright Act.

Judgment

The Copyright Office withdrew the registration after recognising the jurisprudential impossibility that AI could be considered a “person” or “artist” under Sections 2(d)(iii) and 2(d)(vi) of the Copyright Act, 1957. The Office shifted the burden to applicants to clarify AI’s “legal status,” revealing its own uncertainty about applying fifty-year-old statutory language to autonomous AI systems.

Legal Principle Established

The withdrawal established that Indian copyright law does not recognise AI as a legal person capable of authorship. Sections 2(d)(iii) and 2(d)(vi) require a “person” or “artist,” terms that presuppose human legal personality under Indian law.

Direct Relevance to Fashion Design Research

This controversy exposes the regulatory vacuum in Indian law regarding AI-generated fashion creations. Designers cannot determine whether AI-generated fabric patterns or garment collections receive protection, who would hold that protection, or what remedies exist against unauthorised replication. The case demonstrates that Section 2(d)(vi)’s phrase “the person who causes the work to be created” collapses when AI makes autonomous aesthetic selections, leaving fashion designers in legal limbo.

4.2 Delhi High Court Deepfake Case (2026) – Authorship and Human Intellectual Labor

 Facts

The Delhi High Court adjudicated a case concerning copyright protection of AI-generated artistic work featuring fictional characters created through deepfake technology. The case assumed significance as one of the first applications of Indian copyright law to AI-generated content, raising questions about whether AI-created outputs qualify as “artistic works” under Section 2(a) of the Copyright Act.

Judgment

The Delhi High Court held that authorship implies human intellectual labor beyond mechanical reproduction. The court emphasized that AI-generated works without meaningful human creative contribution cannot qualify for copyright protection under Indian law.

Legal Principle Established

The ruling established that human intellectual labor is essential for authorship recognition under Indian copyright law. The court distinguished between “mechanical reproduction” and “creative expression,” holding that only works demonstrating human creative consciousness qualify for copyright eligibility.

Direct Relevance to Fashion Design Research

This judgment directly impacts fashion designers using generative AI to produce commercial collections. If AI autonomously generates fabric patterns or garment designs without meaningful human creative input, these designs fall into the public domain, leaving fashion houses unable to protect investments or prevent competitor replication. The ruling creates binary outcomes mirroring the U.S. Thaler precedent: either sufficient human creative contribution exists (copyright/design registration) or designs receive no protection.

5. Critical Analysis and Finding

5.1 The Structural Gap: Statutory Language vs. Algorithmic Autonomy

Indian intellectual property law suffers from a structural dissonance that renders it fundamentally incapable of addressing AI-generated fashion creations. The Copyright Act, 1957, drafted in 1957 when computers were passive calculation tools, presumes human authorship through Section 2(d), yet Section 2(d)(vi)’s provision for “the person who causes the work to be created” in computer-generated works catastrophically collapses when confronted with genuinely autonomous AI systems.[20] The phrase “causes the work to be created” maps linearly to human intention flowing through passive instruments, but contemporary generative AI—employing GANs, Transformers, and deep learning—interrupts this causal chain by making independent aesthetic selections, producing outputs that no human directly conceived.

The RAGHAV controversy crystallises this impossibility: the Copyright Office’s initial recognition of AI as co-author, followed by withdrawal demanding clarification of AI’s “legal status,” exposes the Office’s own uncertainty about applying fifty-year-old statutory language to technology that fundamentally undermines its conceptual premises.[21] No judicial precedent clarifies ownership allocation when AI makes autonomous creative choices, leaving fashion designers in regulatory vacuum.[22]

5.2 Judicial Trends: Human Authorship as Constitutional Imperative

Global judicial trends uniformly converge on human authorship as non-negotiable. The U.S. Thaler ruling (2025) affirmed that “copyright requires human authorship,” while the Delhi High Court’s 2026 deepfake case held that “authorship implies human intellectual labor beyond mechanical reproduction.”[23] India’s Design Act similarly clarifies that only natural persons can be designers, excluding AI from designer status.[24] These rulings create binary outcomes—either sufficient human creative contribution exists (copyright) or designs fall into public domain—ignoring the spectrum of human-AI collaboration in fashion design where AI makes substantial creative choices while humans provide vague direction.

6. Conclusion

This article addresses the critical question: Who owns AI-generated fashion creations under intellectual property law? The analysis reveals that under current Indian law, ownership remains indeterminate, leaving such works in legal limbo—neither clearly vested in the designer, programmer, or user, nor definitively relegated to the public domain. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, built on assumptions of human authorship, catastrophically fails when confronted with autonomous AI creation. Section 2(d) (vi)’s phrase “the person who causes the work to be created” collapses when AI makes independent aesthetic selections without meaningful human intervention. Global judicial trends uniformly establish human authorship as non-negotiable: the U.S. Thaler ruling and Delhi High Court’s 2026 deepfake case confirm that “authorship implies human intellectual labour beyond mechanical reproduction.” The key finding is clear: AI-generated fashion designs currently receive no protection under Indian law unless demonstrable human creative contribution exists. This creates existential uncertainty for fashion houses investing millions in AI design technology, unable to protect investments or prevent competitor replication. Forward-looking reform requires legislative intervention. Parliament must amend the Copyright Act and Design Act to: (1) establish clear ownership criteria allocating rights among designers, programmers, and data trainers; (2) define human creative contribution thresholds requiring meaningful creative choices over prompt engineering; (3) balance AI innovation incentives with public access preservation. Until such amendment occurs, the fashion industry remains suspended between technological possibility and legal impossibility—unable to realise AI’s creative potential while exposed to unprecedented legal risk.

7. Bibliography

1. Trade Marks Act 1999 (India)
2. Copyright Act 1957 (India)
3. Designs Act 2000 (India)
4. TRIPS Agreement.
5. Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
6. Madrid Protocol- International Trademark Registration System.
7. WIPO Copyright Treaty & WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty.
8. DPIIT reports.

[1] The Copyright Act,1957, 2(d), Act No. 14 of 1957 (India), https://www.copyright.gov.in/Documents/Copyrightrules1957.pdf

[2]  SSRN, ‘Authorship of AI Generated Works under the Copyright Act, 1957’: An Analytical Study (July 25, 2019) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3443006. (accessed 6 June 2026)

[3] Mohan Kumar S.K., ‘The Legal Status Of AI-Generated Fashion In Authorship, Ownership and Design Rights’ 12 Int’l J. Latest Legal Res. & Rev. (2026), https://www.ijllr.com/post/the-legal-status-of-ai-generated-fashion-in-authorship-ownership-and-design-rights (accessed 6 June 2026)

[4] Sage Publications, ‘AI-driven computational creativity in fashion design: a review’, Textile Res. J. (Mar. 13, 2025), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00405175241279976 (accessed 6 June 2026)

[5] Managing IP, ‘Exclusive: India recognises AI as co-author of copyrighted artwork’ (Aug. 4, 2021) https://www.managingip.com/article/2a5bqo2drurt0bxl7ab24/exclusive-india-recognises-ai-as-co-author-of-copyrighted-artwork (accessed 6 June 2026)

[6] Managing IP, ‘Indian Copyright Office issues withdrawal notice to AI co-author’ (Dec. 12, 2021) https://www.managingip.com/article/2a5bqtj8ume32iwlaoy5y/exclusive-indian-copyright-office-issues-withdrawal-notice-to-ai-co-aut (accessed 6 June 2026)

[7] Spicy IP, ‘AI Art and Indian Copyright Registration’ (Oct. 8, 2022) https://spicyip.com/2022/10/ai-art-and-indian-copyright-registration.html (accessed 6 June 2026)

[8]  U.S. Copyright Office, ‘Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability of Outputs Created Using Generative AI 1-20’ (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf (accessed 6 June 2026)

[9]  Artnet News, ‘U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Grant Copyright to A.I.-Generated Artwork’ (Mar. 3, 2026) https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-art-copyright-supreme-court-ruling-2750081 (accessed 6 June 2026)

[10] Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, c. 48, § 9(3) (UK); J. Intell. Prop. L. & Prac., ‘Dealing with AI-generated works: lessons from the CDPA section 9(3)’ (Feb. 2024) https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jiplap/v19y2024i1p43-54..html (accessed 6 June 2026)

[11] SSRN, ‘Authorship of AI Generated Works under the Copyright Act, 1957’: An Analytical Study (July 25, 2019) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3443006. (accessed 6 June 2026)

[12]  Mohan Kumar S.K., ‘The Legal Status Of AI-Generated Fashion In Authorship, Ownership and Design Rights’, 12 Int’l J. Latest Legal Res. & Rev. (2026).

[13]  Abdul Sathar, ‘A Look at Generative AI in Terms of Intellectual Property Rights’, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (Mar. 18, 2025).

[14]  Mark Jetsaphon Niyompatama & Ioanna Lapatoura, ‘Generative AI in fashion design creation: a copyright analysis of AI-assisted designs’, J. Intell. Prop. L. & Prac. 654 (Oct. 2025).

[15]  Spicy IP, ‘AI Art and Indian Copyright Registration’ (Oct. 8, 2022) (accessed 6 June 2026)

[16]  Managing IP, ‘Indian Copyright Office issues withdrawal notice to AI co-author’ (Dec. 12, 2021).

[17] Ibid.

[18]  U.S. Copyright Office, ‘Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability of Outputs Created Using Generative AI’ (Jan. 29, 2025).

[19]  Ibid 17.

[20]  Ibid 11.

[21]  Ibid 7.

[22]  Ibid 12.

[23]  U.S. Copyright Office, ‘Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability of Outputs Created Using Generative AI’ (Jan. 29, 2025).

[24]  Invntree, ‘AI-Generated Designs: Do They Qualify Under Indian Law?’ (2024).