I think what would be required for the best protection of a fursuit design would be a design patent - the standard method for protecting artistic elements of a functional object. This would most likely be owned by the fursuit builder, since they might make several fursuits following the design of the patent and would probably like to avoid people making "lookalike suits" for less - for 14 years, anyway, in the U.S.
There is a separate copyright issue relating to distinctive images or patterns depicted on the fur. This might be owned by the artist who created the art, but could be assigned to the owner of the character.
This balance works out well because then the fursuit builder can't create more characters that have a pattern resembling the original, while the commissioner can't have someone else create a fursuit that have the exact same shape and features.
Of course in reality people don't seem to do this, but they often act as if they had.
I think what would be required for the best protection of a fursuit design would be a design patent - the standard method for protecting artistic elements of a functional object. This would most likely be owned by the fursuit builder, since they might make several fursuits following the design of the patent and would probably like to avoid people making "lookalike suits" for less - for 14 years, anyway, in the U.S.
There is a separate copyright issue relating to distinctive images or patterns depicted on the fur. This might be owned by the artist who created the art, but could be assigned to the owner of the character.
This balance works out well because then the fursuit builder can't create more characters that have a pattern resembling the original, while the commissioner can't have someone else create a fursuit that have the exact same shape and features.
Of course in reality people don't seem to do this, but they often act as if they had.