Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.

Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 31, 2016 Decided March 22, 2017
Full case name	Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc., et al.
Docket no.	15-866
Citations	580 U.S. ___ (more) 137 S. Ct. 1002; 197 L. Ed. 2d 354; 2017 U.S. LEXIS 2026
Argument	Oral argument
Opinion announcement	Opinion announcement
Case history
Prior	Judgement for Star Athletica, No. 2:10-cv-02508, 2014 WL 819422 (W.D. Tenn. Mar. 1, 2014) Reversed, 799 F.3d 468 (6th Cir. 2015) Writ of certiorari granted, 136 S.Ct. 1823 (2016)
Subsequent	Case settled over Star Athletica's objection (2017)
Holding
Aesthetic design elements on useful articles, like clothing, can be copyrightable if they can be separately identified as art and exist independently of the useful article.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Thomas, joined by Roberts, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan
Concurrence	Ginsburg
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Kennedy
Laws applied
Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. § 101)

Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc., 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court decided under what circumstances aesthetic elements of "useful articles" can be restricted by copyright law. The Court created a two-prong "separability" test, granting copyrightability based on separate identification and independent existence; the aesthetic elements must be identifiable as art if mentally separated from the article's practical use, and must qualify as copyrightable pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works if expressed in any medium.

The case was a dispute between two clothing manufacturers, Star Athletica and Varsity Brands. Star Athletica began creating cheerleading uniforms with stripes, zigzags, and chevron insignia similar to those made by a Varsity subsidiary, but at a lower price. Varsity sued Star Athletica for copyright infringement, and Star Athletica said that the clothing designs were uncopyrightable because their aesthetic designs were tied closely to (and guided by) their utilitarian purpose as uniforms. The court rejected this argument with a close reading of the statute and established that the clothing designs, as aesthetic elements of a useful article of clothing, could be copyrightable. It declined to hear Star Athletica's follow-up question about whether Varsity's designs were original enough to be copyrightable, so that part of the case remained unaddressed and Varsity's copyright registrations stood.

The court's conclusion that aesthetic elements of useful articles (and, thereby, clothing-design elements) could be copyrighted intrigued fashion designers and intellectual property scholars. Some were pleased with the decision because they saw extending copyright to clothes as parity with other creative industries which had had copyrights for much longer. Others denounced the court's opinion because of ambiguities in how to enforce the new rules and because of its potential to end fashion trends in generic clothing.