Designer Guild Ltd v Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd

Designer Guild Limited v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Limited, is a leading House of Lords case on what constitutes copying in copyright infringement cases. The House of Lords considered whether there was infringement of a fabric design. Although both the copyrighted work and the infringing design were different in detail, the overall impression of the designs was the same. This decision is significant because the House of Lords ruled that copyright infringement is dependent on whether the defendant copied a substantial portion of the original work, rather than whether the two works look the same. The outcome suggests that in the United Kingdom the overall impression of a copyrighted work is protected if the copied features involved the labour, skill and originality of the author's work, even if the copyrighted work and infringing work are different in detail.