Before and after Designers Guild: Another Look at Appellate Deference in New Zealand’s Copyright Law

Abstract

In Designers Guild Ltd v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd,2 the House of Lords held that the Court of Appeal had erred by assessing anew the decision of the trial judge as to the substantiality of the defendant’s copying of the plaintiff’s fabric and wallpaper designs. As Lord Hoffmann explained, because that decision involved “the application of a not altogether precise legal standard to a combination of features of varying importance,” analysis of substantial copying “falls within the class of case in which an appellate court should not reverse a judge’s decision unless [the judge] has erred in principle.”3 Their Lordships agreed that there had been no such error. The New Zealand Supreme C..