As a Polish-Australian advocate specializing in intellectual property law, I've spent my career exploring where creativity meets legal protection. Currently, I split my time between academia as an Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia's Faculty of Law and Administration in Katowice, and practice at the law firm Pawełczyk & Szura.
My journey into the intricate world of IP began with my 2010 PhD exploring Author and the Right of Attribution – a deep dive into how creators maintain ownership of their work. This passion evolved into examining how digital technology reshapes legal landscapes, culminating in my 2017 habilitation thesis on Legal Character of Digital Maps and subsequent book Digital Maps: IP Paradigms and New Technology.
Most recently, I've ventured into the glamorous yet legally complex world of fashion with Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright Law and the Fashion Industry: A Comparative Analysis (Routledge, 2024) – because even haute couture needs legal protection. In 2025, I added business acumen to my legal expertise, earning an MBA from Deakin University in Melbourne – one of the world's top 1% business schools – achieving High Distinctions in all 15 units.
Beyond writing, I lead change in the field as President of the Institute of Intellectual Property foundation since 2016, and founded the Center for Design, Fashion and Advertisement Law at University of Silesia in 2019. I've also contributed to EU policy as a member of the European Commission's Expert Group on liability and new technologies.
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Forget boring legal jargon – JankowskaAcademy is where fashion pros learn to turn legal knowledge into cold, hard cash. Think of it as your secret weapon for dominating the fashion game while everyone else is still figuring out what "intellectual property" even means.
Here's the thing: while your competitors are getting sued for knockoff designs or losing millions to trademark trolls, you'll be three steps ahead, building bulletproof brands and licensing deals that print money. We're talking real business strategy here – how to leverage copyright law to create exclusive partnerships, use trademark protection to command premium pricing, and structure licensing agreements that generate passive income while you sleep.
Our courses aren't just about what's legal or illegal (yawn). We dive deep into the business playbook: How do luxury brands maintain exclusivity? What makes a $5,000 handbag legally different from a $20 knockoff? How can emerging designers use IP strategy to attract investors and scale globally? How do you build a fashion empire that's lawsuit-proof and acquisition-ready?
Whether you're launching a direct-to-consumer brand, negotiating with manufacturers, or planning your exit strategy, we teach you to think like a CEO who happens to know the law inside out. Because in fashion, legal protection isn't just about avoiding problems – it's about creating unfair competitive advantages that turn your creativity into serious wealth.
Ready to stop playing defense and start winning the business game?
ContactEver wondered why some fashion brands become billion-dollar empires while others fade into obscurity? The secret isn't just great design – it's knowing how to protect and monetize creativity through smart legal strategy.
This book pulls back the velvet curtain on fashion's most successful players, revealing how legendary designers from Coco Chanel to modern-day moguls weaponized copyright law to build untouchable market positions. Turns out, the greatest couturiers weren't just artistic geniuses – they were brilliant businesspeople who understood that legal protection equals competitive advantage.
Through detailed analysis of legal frameworks across the USA, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, I decode the complex relationship between creativity and commerce in fashion. But this isn't just legal theory – it's a practical roadmap for anyone who wants to understand why a Hermès bag commands $10,000 while a lookalike sells for $50, and how that distinction is legally maintained.
The fashion industry presents unique challenges that push intellectual property law to its limits. How do you copyright a silhouette? When does inspiration become infringement? This book tackles these questions head-on, providing a comprehensive copyrightability test for fashion goods that actually works in the real world.
Essential reading for researchers, legal practitioners, fashion entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to understand how law shapes one of the world's most influential industries.
Where to Buy:
A wise person once said, if you have no idea about a particular topic, write a book about it. Taking that advice, I wrote my habilitation book about digital maps. The impact of technology in our lives is constantly growing, also in the area of cartography and geoinformation. Old cartography and the laws relating to it will either fade away or reassess their relevance in the digital world.
For that reason, the research question posed in this book is whether satellite signals or satellite images and their content are copyrightable and whether they constitute a work of authorship and, if so,then of what kind?
To this end, I spent a few years immersed in the issues of cartography and geoinformation. As a lawyer, I wanted to learn the so called ‘cartographic grammar’ in order to understand how law and new technology intertwine.
I believe this book, encompassing as it does a great deal of work, will become a very helpful guidebook for many actors on the geoinformation scene: governments, space agencies, and entrepreneurs active in the space and geoinformation industries. It will also serve as a handbook for legal practitioners and students (of law, geography, geoinformation and geoinformatics).
Price:
Hard cover – 35 USD, 30 Euro
eBook – 15 USD, 20 Euro
Get your dream project in your budget.
To spend time considering the legal nature of paper and digital maps i a necessary exercise, but to do so demands a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach. [...] It should be emphasised here that the work of the author is undoubtedly the first such comprehensive study of issues related to international and national regulations that are related to the legal status of both traditional and digital maps.
Prof. Dr. hab. Ryszard Markiewicz, Dr Ewa Laskowska (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)
This author provided interesting interpretation based on Polish literature, examples and law. This makes the book as a whole unique and of interested to Polish scholars as well as to English speakers generally.
Prof. Dr. Gregore Cho AM (University of Canberra, Australia)
To spend time considering the legal nature of paper and digital maps i a necessary exercise, but to do so demands a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach. [...] It should be emphasised here that the work of the author is undoubtedly the first such comprehensive study of issues related to international and national regulations that are related to the legal status of both traditional and digital maps.
Prof. Dr. hab. Ryszard Markiewicz, Dr Ewa Laskowska (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)
I would love to get in contact with you. For comments, offers and book sale issues please don’t hesitate to contact me in any of the following ways:
Address:Legal Office
adv. dr hab. Marlena Jankowska Augustyn
3 Maja Street 26, 40-096 Katowice, Poland.
Contact no:
+48 608 206 869
