George Lucas was involved in an interesting intellectual property case concerning the stormtrooper helmets, featured in the original Star Wars film.
In 1976 while Star Wars episode IV was being developed, Andrew Ainsworth, a youthful industrial design graduate student here in England, had been approached to design a helmet based around a set of sketches. He invested a couple of days creating the model for the helmets found in the film. No written agreement with regard to the creation of these helmets existed.
Mr Ainsworth retained the moulds which gathered dust for a long time right up until 2002 when he sold a helmet and some other items for £60,000 at an auction. Recognising the sentimental value of all these authentic items, he started trying to sell further helmets based on the original moulds via his website together with a fair number in america.
In 2004 George Lucas and others began proceedings against Mr Ainsworth in america for $20,000,000 on the basis that Mr Ainsworth did not have the Intellectual Property (“IP”) rights in the helmets and therefore didn’t have the right to sell them. George Lucas was successful in his claim in the US legal courts but because Mr Ainsworth didn’t have any assets there, the court battle moved to the UK.
Intellectual property solicitors
After having spent about £700,000 defending the claim, Mr Ainsworth was, on the whole, successful in his defence.
The main issue for the Uk courts to think about, which was ultimately decided in the Supreme Court, was whether the helmets qualified as works of sculpture in which case they’d be covered by copyright (which will last for the life span of the creator plus 70 years) or whether they were merely functional costumes (in which case the protection would have been limited to fifteen years starting from the day that they were publicized).
The Supreme Court ruled that the helmets didn’t have the required high quality of artistic creation required of a sculpture. The protection had thus expired and Mr Ainsworth was totally free to use and then sell the helmets.
This case highlights the importance of ensuring that any kind of IP you create or make use of is managed properly and also the potentially massive charges involved when it is not.
