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This information is taken directly from the court opinion. It is not taken out of context nor is it altered.

From Galiano v Harrah's, 416 F.3d 411 (5th 2005)

Thus, a clothing design that is intended to be used on clothing is copyrightable only to the extent that its artistic qualities can be separated from the utilitarian nature of the garment. How to conduct the conceptual separation is, in turn, what continues to flummox federal courts. The leading treatise in the field, NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT, discusses conceptual separability extensively. It presents the conceptual separability test somewhat differently, and one standard reads as follows: "[I]t may be concluded that conceptual separability exists where there is substantial likelihood that even if the article had no utilitarian use it would still be marketable to some significant segment of the community simply because of its aesthetic qualities." Nimmer's cogent discussion of the scope of copyright protection in design works breaks the subject into two categories: (1) fabric design and (2) dress design. Fabric designs include patterns or artistic features imprinted onto a fabric or that appear repeatedly throughout the dress fabric. Because one can generally separate the artistic elements of this design from the utility of the wearable garment, NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT states that fabric designs are generally entitled to copyright protection. On the other hand, dress designs, which graphically set forth the shape, style, cut, and dimensions for converting fabric into a finished dress or other clothing garment, generally do not have artistic elements that can be separated from the utilitarian use of the garment, and therefore typically do not qualify for copyright protection. The caselaw generally follows Nimmer's conceptual breakdown. Design of sweaters is usually classified as "fabric design" and is entitled to copyright protection. Similarly, artistic designs woven or imprinted onto rugs qualify for copyright protection. See Peel & Co. v. Rug Market, 238 F.3d 391, 394 (5th Cir.2001). Cases dealing with the copyrightability of clothing designs do not exclude them from protection per se; they instead focus on the "separability" analysis. In Poe v. Missing Persons, 745 F.2d 1238 (9th Cir.1984), for example, the court awarded copyright protection to a swimsuit design. Poe is quite enlightening, because it involved no ordinary swimsuit. The court found that there was little chance of this elaborately crafted swimsuit's ever being worn--it appeared that it was marketed as a work of art. The Second Circuit faced a similar situation dealing with belt buckles in Kieselstein-Cord. The court determined that "Winchester" and "Vaquero" belt buckles contained artistic elements that were conceptually separable despite the buckles' utilitarian functions. See Kieselstein-Cord, 632 F.2d at 993. This ruling was premised on the belief that the buckles could exist independently as a valuable artistic commodity. The court nonetheless determined that the belt buckle in question existed on the "razor's edge of copyright law." As with the court in Poe, the Kieselstein/Cord court's willingness to recognize the copyrightability of a useful article seems, at some elemental level, to turn on the capacity of the item to moonlight as a piece of marketable artwork.