Royal Printex v. Unicolors

Unicolors (defendant) registered a copyright for a daisy fabric design. The fabric design contained a daisy repeating at equidistant intervals, placed against a generic polka-dot background. The main elements of the fabric design were the daisies and their placement in a repetitive pattern. Unicolors used the generic polka-dot background in more than one fabric design. Royal Printex, Inc. (Royal) (plaintiff) also printed a fabric design that contained daisies and a polka-dot background. The two fabric designs were essentially identical, using the same individual daisies, arranged in the same pattern. Royal filed an action against Unicolors seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement, and Unicolors counterclaimed for copyright infringement. At trial, Unicolors offered testimony that the fabric design was an original work created by Unicolors. Unicolors did not provide records supporting the originality of the design, nor did it identify a particular Unicolors designer who created the design. A trial exhibit, Forties Fabrics, was a book published in 1997. It contained a flower fabric design, captioned with the year 1949, almost identical to Unicolors’ and Royal’s designs. The only difference in the book’s fabric design was the ticking-stripe background instead of polka dots. Following the trial, the court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law.