Pattern of copying comes under fire in apparel industry.

For several years, David Suh, co-owner of a small Los Angeles fashion design firm, supplied many of the textile patterns used in the youthful tops and bottoms sold at Forever 21 Inc., the successful junior retailer.

In doing so, he competed against what is seemingly the most unlikely of rivals--Samsung Corp., the huge Korean conglomerate better known for televisions, phones and other electronic equipment.

It turns out that the company's Samsung Caravel unit, based in Los Angeles, is also one of the region's major players in textile design--and an aggressive one at that.

Suh's Unicolor Inc. is among dozens of firms that Caravel has sued in Los Angeles since 2001, accusing it of pilfering patterns either created or owned by the company.

Suh, who recently settled the case, doesn't deny that the patterns may have originally come from Samsung. "We didn't know we copied Samsung's pattern. Basically, we got the pattern from somebody else," he said.

The lawsuits, many of which have been filed in Los Angeles, have raised eyebrows in the industry, where insiders say fabric designs are commonly stolen, partially because such theft is hard to prove.

The legal actions also raise a window into the convoluted world of clothing design and production, where sources are often hard to pin down and multiple companies are involved in the production process before a garment is ever placed on a rack.

"Infringement happens daily. Samsung has taken it on in a very aggressive level," said Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association. "It is very rare, and you have to be a very rich company like Samsung to follow every print and then sue when it's infringed."

Asian powerhouse

The Korean conglomerate, which sells everything from computers to cosmetics, established its textiles unit in Los Angeles in 1993 and it now does $60 million worth of annual business, giving it one of the largest lines of prints and designs.

In industry lingo, Caravel primarily serves as converter, or a company that develops design lines. The company does not actually manufacture the textiles; that's done by mills across the U.S. and Asia and then sold around the world.

"Caravel is pretty big at this point, pretty well known," said Michael Goldman, vice president of the Textile Association of Los Angeles. "They are one of the leaders on the West Coast."

Such worldwide production and distribution has made Samsung an easy target for knock-offs, with its designs floating in and out of the hands of various companies. But turning to the courts is unusual because it's often hard to prove copyright infringement, the key cause of action in cases in which designs are alleged to have been stolen.

Under established copyright law, if the alleged illegal design is at least 20 percent different from the original, the copyright holder has no case. In most cases, that determination is at the discretion of a judge.

Further, the retailer often has no knowledge about the originator of the allegedly illegal design, and the manufacturer usually points to the company from which it obtained the line. Even those companies may not be sure.

Yuni Cho is owner of Piace Fashion Inc., a garment contractor accused by Samsung of manufacturing clothing for Forever 21 that was from a pilfered design. She said she buys large quantifies of fabric and often has no idea who actually designed the patterns, which are brought to her in the hundreds from design firms.

"There are so many patterns, you know?" said Cho, who now realizes she made a skirt and some Capri pants for Forever 21 from a disputed design. "When they sell the prints, I just assume they registered their prints. I didn't think it was other people's prints."

Unusual strategy

That's one reason industry insiders say Samsung may have mounted such a broad legal campaign, which has targeted companies at nearly every level of the manufacturing and distribution chain.

As a major conglomerate, Samsung has the financial wherewithal to scare off companies that might be illegally profiting from its designs, whether or not it can prove its case to a judge. Indeed, many of the cases have resulted in settlement, not judgments.

Nathan Yun, corporate counsel at Samsung America Inc., would not comment beyond saying, "We're just enforcing our rights. We're trying to stop the infringements."

However, two recent cases afford a view of Samsung's strategy.

Last year, Samsung filed suit against Vernon-based AZ3 Inc., operator of BCBG, a chain of women' s stores, and Macy's and Bloomingdale's, owned by Federated Department Stores Inc. Details of the settlement were not disclosed in court papers. Calls to Federated were not returned, and a spokeswoman at AZ3 declined to comment.

Court papers show that the retailers, as well as the manufacturers and suppliers that work with them, denied claims made by Samsung that they had "engaged in a scheme to manufacture, market and distribute 'knock-off" designs that literally duplicate SAI's protected designs."

The lawsuit referred to floral print No. 1W7718. "Every single element of color, pattern, texture and graphic is identical, with the exception of the omission of SAI's copyright notice," Samsung's lawsuit states.

Still, the case ended in a settlement. That also was the outcome of the Forever 21 case, which Samsung filed against the retailer and eight of its Los Angeles-based garment manufacturers and fabric suppliers and designers, including Unicolor and Piace Fashions.

In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, Samsung accused the companies of illegally copying four protected designs for clothes sold at Forever 21. It sought $150,000 for each infringement.

In court papers, Samsung says it sent a cease and desist letter to Forever 21, which "continued to sell and is still selling ... infringing garments in violation of plaintiffs rights as the copyright proprietor and owner." The company claimed its brand name was diluted and it lost income and profits, while Forever 21 and its suppliers made money through infringement. A spokesman for Los Angeles-based Forever 21 declined to comment.

However, the lawsuit appears to at least partially have resulted in its desired effect. Suh, who said he has only been sued once before, said he has changed his business practice as a result of the Samsung litigation. Instead of only buying the designs he provides to garment contractors and manufacturers, Suh said he has begun to develop more styles in-house. He also double checks what he buys from others.

"We weren't thinking about those things at the time. Now, we're more careful," he said.