Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L. P.
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A short, plain-English overview of Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L. P..
In Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., the Supreme Court addressed whether a copyright registration remains valid under the safe harbor provision of § 411(b)(1)(A) when an applicant makes a mistake of law. Unicolors filed a copyright infringement action against H&M, which argued that Unicolors' registration was invalid due to inaccuracies. The Court found that § 411(b) does not differentiate between mistakes of law and fact, allowing for the safe harbor to apply to both.
Holding
The single most important “bottom line” of what the Court decided in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L. P..
The Court held that § 411(b) does not distinguish between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact; lack of either can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration.
Key Quotes
Short excerpts from the syllabus in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L. P. that support the summary and concepts above.
Section 411(b) does not distinguish between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact.
If Unicolors was not aware of the legal requirement that rendered information in its application inaccurate, it could not have included the inaccurate information 'with knowledge that it was inaccurate.'
Nothing in § 411(b)(1)(A) suggests that the safe harbor applies differently simply because an applicant made a mistake of law as opposed to a mistake of fact.
