Background
Unicolors, a fabric design company, held copyright registrations on original fabric designs that it sold to clothing manufacturers. Unicolors filed a single copyright registration application covering 31 fabric designs — some of which had been published (sold publicly) and some of which were unpublished (held in reserve). Copyright registration regulations generally require separate applications for published and unpublished works; a single application combining them is technically impermissible.
Unicolors sued H&M for infringement when H&M allegedly used one of its copyrighted designs without authorization. H&M discovered the registration error and argued the registration was invalid — void because Unicolors had inaccurately represented in the application that the combined works were unpublished, when some were published. Under § 411(b) of the Copyright Act, a registration can be invalidated if it contains inaccurate information that the registrant “knew was inaccurate” at the time of registration. H&M argued this scienter standard was satisfied because Unicolors knew it had published some of the designs — even if it did not know the legal requirement for separate applications.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the registration was invalid. The Court held 6-3 that § 411(b)’s scienter requirement — requiring that the registrant “knew” the information was inaccurate — does not distinguish between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law. A mistake about legal requirements (what the copyright regulations require) is still a mistake that can negate the “knowingly inaccurate” element of § 411(b). If the registrant genuinely did not know that including both published and unpublished works in one application was legally improper, the registration inaccuracy was not knowing and the registration should not be invalidated.
The Court applied this rule to Unicolors: if Unicolors was unaware of the legal requirement for separate applications for published and unpublished works, its erroneous statement that all works were unpublished was not “knowingly” inaccurate, and the § 411(b) safe harbor applied. The case was remanded for the Ninth Circuit to determine whether Unicolors actually had knowledge of the legal requirement.
Key Takeaways
- Section 411(b)’s safe harbor for registration inaccuracies applies to both mistakes of fact and mistakes of law — a copyright owner’s ignorance of registration requirements can preclude a finding of knowing inaccuracy sufficient to invalidate the registration.
- Copyright registrations containing technical errors or legal mistakes in the application are not automatically invalid — the registrant must have known of the inaccuracy at the time of registration for § 411(b) to void the registration.
- Copyright registration is still a technical practice area requiring care: while good-faith mistakes may survive § 411(b) challenge, parties are better served by accurately completing registrations than by hoping a mistake will be excused as inadvertent.
- The ruling has significant practical implications for small copyright holders and fashion and design companies who may not always have sophisticated copyright counsel reviewing their registration applications.
Why It Matters
Unicolors v. H&M addressed an important aspect of copyright registration law that affects thousands of copyright holders who file their own registrations or work with counsel unfamiliar with the technical requirements of the Copyright Office’s application procedures. The Supreme Court’s ruling that good-faith legal mistakes can avoid the § 411(b) invalidation — the same as good-faith factual mistakes — provides meaningful protection for copyright holders who make honest errors in their registration applications.
For the fashion and fabric design industry — which relies heavily on copyright protection for original designs and frequently files large numbers of registrations — the ruling reduced the risk that opposing parties could void registrations based on technical application errors. More broadly, the decision reinforced that courts should not apply § 411(b) as a sword to invalidate registrations where the copyright holder made an honest mistake, consistent with copyright law’s general policy of encouraging registration as a prerequisite to suit rather than creating technical traps that defeat enforcement of legitimate copyrights.