A recent case concerning replica helmets for the Star Wars Stormtroopers has been decided in the Supreme Court.
One point from the case is relevant to SMEs who sell goods through a website.
The film company said the supplier had breached their copyright in the helmet designs under both UK and US law. The court decided there was no breach of UK copyright law. However it accepted there had been a breach of US copyright law.
That might not be a problem if the UK supplier was sued in the US, unless it had assets there. In this case the court decided that the supplier could be sued in the UK because he had sold the helmets to customers in the US through his website.
The implication of the case is that anyone in the UK who sells abroad is at risk if they don’t comply with the intellectual property rules of the country their customer lives in.
SME’s have probably been aware that they have to comply with the consumer protection laws of the countries their customers are living in. In the event of a complaint most would offer a refund and a consumer is unlikely to sue someone in another country anyway. Intellectual property rights are different because, as in this case, they often belong to the big boys. In this case the supplier sold at most $30,000 of goods in question in the US but the US court said he had to pay damages of $20,000,000!
The case is an illustration of the impact of globalisation. Whether it, or any court case, can be significant enough to act as a brake on export sales or even to encourage the end of national legal systems (and national governments) remains to be seen.
Lucasfilm Limited and others v Ainsworth and others
