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Law Cases
Intellectual Property Law Cases
Copyright 3: Infringement Cases

Designer Guild v Russell Williams [1998] F.S.R. 803

Country:
United Kingdom
By Oxbridge Law Team
Held

  • Claimant owned copyright in a painting from which it produced a fabric design – design was stripes with flowers on top of it.

  • Claimant complained that Defendant had infringed copyright in its painting through copying the fabric design in Defendant’s own fabric design.

  • Defendant claimed he was not aware of Claimant’s design, though there was evidence Defendant had attended trade show at which Claimant’s design was displayed.

Held

  • There was infringement.

  • Whether substantial part of artistic work has been taken depends upon cumulative effect of copied features, and NOT upon whether each feature has in isolation been substantially copied.

  • If similarities between two works are sufficient to raise inference of copying, those similarities will normally satisfy requirement of substantiality.

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