Star Wars: Supreme Court extends its empire against UK defendants, but not the force of UK copyright

The UK Supreme Court's much anticipated decision in the Star Wars Stormtroopers case (given on 27 July) has implications in two main areas that could be of significant interest to many businesses:

• For businesses whose activities are particularly underpinned by copyright, the Court has confirmed that UK-domiciled defendants can be sued in England for foreign, and not just UK, copyright infringement - an interesting development which could potentially expand the territorial reach of UK litigation significantly.

• For companies engaged in the big business of licensed character and other spin-off merchandising (including costumes, toys, collectibles and props - derived from films, TV shows, books or even brand advertising campaigns), the decision provides disappointing but fairly unsurprising confirmation that UK copyright protection will generally be of limited benefit to three-dimensional products that do not originally derive from cartoons or similar works - and therefore reaffirms the importance of investing in UK-applicable design, trade mark and contractual protection.

We consider these implications in more detail here.

Lawyers Tom Carl