Fashion designers to the stars say it's impossible to protect their creations from being "knocked off" by copycats who "lack creativity".They were speaking amid another Gavin Rajah copycat scandal, in which US fashion designer Chelsea Liu has accused him of stealing her designs and threatening to have her deported because of her allegedly defamatory comments in social media rants on Thursday last week.Liu posted images of her own designs as well as screenshots from an international magazine feature on Rajah showing the same designs. Rajah has denied the copycat allegations, threatening Liu with legal action.Top designer David Tlale refused to be "dragged into" the Rajah issue but conceded that protecting his work from copycats was near impossible."When you get your inspiration from somewhere you have to put your personal touch or signature to it. Having to protect yourself is impossible. My take is that there has to be originality and something special about a design."He said designers could patent a brand or a print.JJ Schoeman, who has designed for personalities such as Edith Venter, Abigail Kubeka, Khanyi Mbau, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Bonang Matheba, said: "An identical kind of copy, where everything is one million percent the same, at a big event on a famous personality, because of a lack of creativity on the part of the designer - I think that would be a huge problem."Fashion lawyer Sumaiya De'Mar said South African copyright law set out a range of creative works that were protected."The courts are yet to establish the application of such protection for the design of a dress. But it could be argued that the dress is a 'work of craftsmanship', which falls under the act, in which case the copyright would apply."..