Hats off: Lancaster company pulls hat design after community rallies around Philly designer who made it first
“This is a slimeball move,” he wrote on Instagram last weekend. “I’ve made and sold the PA felt letter hat since 2017.” Schwab also claimed that the Lancaster agency was not only aware of his hats, but they had previously discussed potentially selling them at Ellicott & Co. — a point the agency later disputed to Schwab and The Inquirer.
Following a request for comment from The Inquirer, leaders at Ellicott & Co. reached out to Schwab to apologize and pulled the hat from its website and social media. “Now seeing your design, we recognize how similar it is,” he said. “We apologize for this situation and will immediately stop selling the hat.”. Copyright laws protect an expression, not a specific design or idea. And Schwab isn’t suggesting Ellicott & Co. took his sewing patterns and duplicated the hat. Additionally, Martin said in his email to Schwab that the brand used a publicly available font to make the “PA” and printed the hats locally.