United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether an inaccuracy in Unicolors’ copyright registration invalidates its registration and thus a jury’s $1 million damages award in Unicolors’ favor.
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On June 1, 2021, the Supreme Court granted certiorari on the question of whether Section 411(b) of the Copyright Act is intended to be a “fraud” statute that requires scienter for cancellation of a copyright registration. See Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., No. 20-915.
In 2008, Congress amended the Copyright Act to acknowledge the validity of copyright registrations that were based on applications with ministerial, nonmaterial errors.
See 17 U.S.C. Section 411(a). However, this “safe harbor” is tempered by Section 411(b), which leaves vulnerable to cancellation registrations that contain errors that would have been material to the Copyright Office’s decision to grant registration if the inaccuracy was known to the applicant. The statute also directs a court to request that the Register of Copyrights advise the court whether the inaccurate information, if known, would have caused the Register o
A complaint filed by a photographer in the Southern District of New York filed on Wednesday accuses Hearst Communications, Inc. of copyright infringement
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On June 1, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a case that will likely determine once and for all whether courts are empowered to void copyright registrations based on immaterial registration errors, or whether a showing of bad faith or an intent-to-defraud is required.
The underlying case,
Unicolors v. H&M, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS U.S. App. LEXIS 17097 (9th Cir. May 29, 2020) involved claims for copyright infringement brought by Unicolors, Inc. (“Unicolors”) against retailer H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P. (“H&M”). Unicolors, a company that creates textile designs for use on fabric and apparel, alleged that a design appearing on a jacket sold by H&M infringed upon Unicolors’ copyrighted design. Unicolors had applied for and obtained a copyright registration certificate for the design at issue in the case in February 2011. Notably, Unicolors’ copyright registration included not just the work Unicolors