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

• 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.