By Saturday evening the humdrum office of a firm of City solicitors could have been mistaken for a distant outpost of the Galactic Empire.

Between the desks were the white suits and helmets that are known to Star Wars aficionados the world over as the uniform of the Imperial Stormtrooper.

The lawyers working late that night were preparing to do battle with the opposing legal armies of George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars films, over who owns the copyright on the stormtrooper uniforms, the headgear of the imperial fighter pilots and the helmet designed for Luke Skywalker as he led the final assault on the Death Star in the first film of the original trilogy.

Lucas’s business empire claims that it owns all the rights to the uniforms, while the lawyers at SimmonsCooperAndrew will argue that the rights are in fact vested in an obscure prop designer from Twickenham who made the first helmets and suits for the 1977 film.

Tomorrow morning the opposing sides as well as the assorted stormtrooper suits and helmets will arrive in the Chancery Division of the High Court.

The case, reported today in The Lawyer magazine, could have widereaching implications for the multibillion-pound business of film merchandising.

The back-story to this extraordinary episode requires an opening scene narrative all of its own.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away — or at least as far away as America and as long ago as 1976, in the neighbourhood of a constellation of stars known as Los Angeles — a young Lucas was looking for a designer to build the uniforms for his latest low-budget science fiction space adventure film.

He recruited Ralph McQuarrie to draft pictures envisioning the uniforms of the terrifying army of a ruthless Galactic Empire. He wanted them to wear “spooky white space armour”. He then cast around for a designer to create them and the job fell to Mr Ainsworth.

Describing the arrangement in 2005, Mr Ainsworth said: “An artist friend of mine who Lucas had found took the opportunity to say he could do them (moulds) and what he really meant was, ‘I know a man that can do them’. I’m the man, so I created them for him. The first 50 helmets I sold to him for £35 each.”

The first film gained a huge following and spawned a colossal merchandising operation that, according to Lucas’s legal team, has brought in $12 billion (£6 billion) in “worldwide retail sales of licensed products since 1977”.

For his part Mr Ainsworth remained a designer and engineer and would later create a face-sucking monster for the Alien films. In 2004, however, he discovered one of the original helmets he had made in a cupboard in his home in Twickenham.

After successfully selling it to a collector, he began to manufacture the outfits once more, through his company, Shepperton Design Studios. He found a legion of Star Wars fans willing to pay up to £1,800 for a suit and helmet. Lucasfilm responded in 2006 by suing Mr Ainsworth. A judge in California awarded the firm $20 million (£10 million) in damages for copyright infringement, unfair competition and trademark infringment. It has now brought the case to Britain to ensure that this decision is enforced here.

Lawyers for Lucasfilm will argue that there was an implied contract to produce the uniforms, which were in any case based on artwork which it provided. Lawyers for Mr Ainsworth will argue that the copyright has expired, because the uniforms were pieces of industrial design rather than works of art. The case is expected to last ten days.

Legal force

— Holly Johnson, the lead singer with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, lost a battle to secure exclusive rights to the band’s name last June. His former colleagues wanted to reform

— In India, where yoga has been practised for 6,000 years, the Government is furious over attempts by American yoga entrepreneurs to patent the practice. Since the 1970s when yoga first became popular in the US, 150 yoga-related copyrights have been issued by US authorities

— In 2006 John Steinbeck’s son and only granddaughter were granted control of the author’s classic works after the family of the author’s last wife tried to recapture copyright. The son and granddaughter took advantage of a right for heirs to “recapture” copyright granted by Congress in a 1998 law

— Gary Brooker won full royalty rights to Procul Harum’s classic A Whiter Shade of Pale last week after a two-year battle with the organist from the 1967 hit

Source: Times Database

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