intellectual propertyCopyright - patchwork bedspreads not 'work of artistic craftsmanship'- drawings of patterns supplemented by accompanying words and figures 'graphic work'Vermaat and another v Boncrest Ltd: ChD (Evans-Lombe J):25 May 2000 The claimants brought an action against the defendant for infringing their copyright in a number of patterns for patchwork bedspreads and matching cushion covers which they had sent to a manufacturer in India, and in relation to a number of sample bedspreads made in India to the claimants' specification.

The defendant contended that no copyright was capable of subsisting in the claimants' patterns and samples, which issue was ordered to be tried as a preliminary issue.Andrew Norris (instructed by Royds Treadwell) for the claimants.

Michael Edenborough (instructed by Nabarro Nathanson) for the defendant.Held, declaring that copyright was capable of subsisting in the drawings but not in the samples, that copyright was only capable of subsisting in the designs for bedspreads and cushion covers if they constituted 'work of artistic craftsmanship' within s.4(1)(c) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988; that for a work to be regarded as one of artistic craftsmanship, it must be possible fairly to say that the author was both a craftsman and an artist; that the samples produced by the Indian seamstress were works of craftsmanship, and pleasing to the eye, but were not sufficiently creative as to be artistic; that the fact that the drawings were not exclusively pictorial but needed, to be understood, the figures and words which appeared on them did not prevent them being graphic works, because even if the drawings could not stand alone they could nevertheless be described as a diagram containing instructions on how to produce an artistic work; and that therefore the drawings were 'graphic work' within the meaning of s.4(1)(a) of the Act.