George Lucas was involved in a recent intellectual property court case concerning the stormtrooper helmets, featured in the original Star Wars film.
Way back in 1976 while Star Wars episode IV was being developed, Andrew Ainsworth, a youthful industrial design graduate student here in England, was approached to create head gear based around a set of sketches. He invested a couple of days producing the model for the helmets found in the film. No written contract for the production of these helmets existed.
Mr Ainsworth retained the moulds which just sat and collected dust for a long time right up until 2002 when he sold one of the helmets and a few other things for £60,000 at an auction. Recognising the sentimental value of these genuine items, he began trying to sell more helmets using the original moulds via his website together with a number in the US.
In 2004 George Lucas and others began courtroom proceedings against Mr Ainsworth in the US for $20,000,000 because they claimed that Mr Ainsworth did not have the Intellectual Property (“IP”) rights to the helmets and for that reason didn’t have the right to sell them. George Lucas was successful in his claim in the US legal courts however as Mr Ainsworth didn’t have any assets there, the courtroom battle relocated to the UK.
Intellectual property solicitors
After spending around £700,000 defending the claim, Mr Ainsworth was, overall, successful in his defence.
The main issue for the Uk courts to take into consideration, which was ultimately decided in the Supreme Court, was whether the helmets certified as works of sculpture in which case they’d be covered by copyright (which will last for the life of the creator plus 70 years) or if they were merely functional costumes (whereby the protection would be restricted to fifteen years starting from the date they were marketed).
The Supreme Court decided that the helmets lacked the necessary quality of artistic creation required of a sculpture. The protection had thus run out and so Mr Ainsworth was free to use and sell the helmets.
This situation shows the significance of making certain that any IP you make or even use is handled properly and the possibly huge charges involved if it’s not.