Tula's patent did not run out. This is her actual blog, her actual reaction and what she plans to do about it: http://tulapink.com/2010/09/19/outraged/

I'm sure the professionals will get to the bottom of the copyright infringement. In the meantime, it would be a nice gesture not to buy any of the fabric if you do see it. One day you might have a fabric line and I know you'd want us behind you if someone stole your intellectual property. And we'd be there with bells on! :wink:

I understand about her reaction. But to start blaming a nationwide chain right off the bat is silly. The blame lies in the manufacturer who allegedly stole her pattern or patterns. Like someone said here earlier Wal mart and even major places like Sears, Khol's, Penny's etc. can't to a search on every item they sell as to where it's origin is at. All they can do is either stop selling the item or sell what is in stock and not use that particular manufacturer.


Added note:
I did read her reaction, violence is implied. I don't think the Mafia goes after little Chinese knock off artists.

Not everyone can afford the real deal. So an imitation has to do.
Just be careful in what you buy.

I lost a lot of respect for this designer by instantly blaming Walmart for her copyright infringement. She is upset as anyone would be in this situation but to kill the messenger attitude with no facts to back up her accusations is not professional. I hope she gets her day in court and the facts are known either good or bad about this.

I don't think this can possibly be attributed to Moda - WHY would a major corp like Moda hijack their OWN designers patterns - to sell at chain stores ??? makes NO sense
One of the comments to Tula's site said these copycat fabrics have NOTHING on the print register/ selvages - they were all BLANK - so that points to the knockoff fabrics printed in India, Asia or China. They are the real offenders and continually copy/ alter popular fabric & textile designs. Wal Mart apparently bought from these vendors without checking :roll:

Wal-mart has hundreds of buyers. These buyers make most of their buying decisions based on cost and expected profit margin, and they exert tremendous pressure on sellers to hold down manufacturing costs. They don't care about quality as much as they do about cost.

When a seller comes to WM with a product that they're pitching, a WM buying committee judges demand and potential profit margin on the product. They might, and often do, send the seller back to the drawing boards to see if they can produce it at lower cost.

Usually this means that sellers either improve their manufacturing processes or have the goods manufactured in a cheaper facility someplace. Often it means that the seller finds ways to use cheaper, lower quality base goods in the manufacture of their product.

Once in awhile, sellers just say NO to WM's pricing pressure, and decide not to sell to WM because it would mean lowering the quality, and therefore the brand value, of their goods too much. This is why you sometimes see really good products appear on WM shelves, then after a short time disappear.

In this case, do I think WM bought and sold knockoff goods?

Yes. The evidence here is pretty convincing. I don't think that the designer would make this claim publicly without checking with Moda first. If Moda sold seconds or mis-prints to WM, then it's on their heads, but I really think that these are knockoffs made by some third party.

Do I think WM did it intentionally?

No. I don't think they're that stupid, but no one says a company with ethics standards can't, and occasionally do, employ unethical buyers.

Do I think the WM fabric buyer had a responsibility to perform due diligence to see if the fabric was indeed a cheap knockoff?

Yes, and I think that if this get escalated far enough, the buyer responsible will probably "pay" in some way for this mistake, or, if there was no due diligence policy, one will be created.

Any idea how that "due diligence" is performed?

Would the buyer have to peruse all the new fabrics by all the major players, just to see if they recognize it? Where could they see it? Online at the manufacturers' websites?

That won't be sufficient, if it's a design that's still in the strike-off phase as, at that point, it wouldn't even be visible "out there".

It's a hard issue, for sure! BTW I'm bringing this post to Moda's attention, in case they'd like to speak for themselves about it.

And... I wonder what *does* happen to those preliminary strikeoffs? Does anybody know? Do they get "destroyed", or sold as pound goods, or recycled, or... do they wind up for sale as "no-name" fabrics somewhere?

Cranston was just used as an example earlier in this thread. There is no brand name on the fabrics, according to her comment in reply to another comment on her blog. Cranston was not mentioned on the blog at all-someone here in this thread just used it as an example of a company that sells a different line to different types of stores.

I've been concerned that sometimes on this board we border on libel. I also wondered because there is a crazy person out there that thinks he found a fossil of a dragon and has threatened my husband on more than one occasion and published on the internet (DH says they are just rocks). So I looked up libel to see if this qualifies.

It looks like as long as we are stating our "opinions" not presenting as facts, that we are okay.

Here is a link if you are interested: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-libel.htm

I was taught that if you can't say anything nice about someone then don't say anything at all.

I've used WalMart material and have been satisfied. You just have to look it over good like you should do whereever you buy fabric.