Having opened up a huge can or worms I can completely understand why LFL want to continue to progress this - and will undoubtedly follow the Supreme Court with an appeal to the European Courts. I'm not sure if there's a Galactic Court but I wouldn't rule that out either!
IMO the most important process is for film/tv/medial companies to lobby for a change in the law to protect industrial copyright used in these industries for longer than the current 15 years. Although like I said before, given we're entering an election period I'd say it wouod be 2011 at the earliest.
Cheers
Jez
The Supreme Court is the next step, but as you said it is unlikely there will be a different decision there. They can only overrule the test, which is unlikely as it is entirely reasonable and both the original judge and the appellate panel gave cogent arguments why.
They can overturn the original judges interpretation of the test, which they will only do if it is wildly unreasonable. Appellate courts in the UK have the general principle that the trial judge, having heard the testimonies and with all the evidence before them, are in a better situation to decide matters of fact than a panel with only transcripts months after the trial.
They may have more luck with the jurisdictional matters but I doubt it. These matters are the remit of reciprocal international treaties, not the civil courts. This would require the US to recognise foreign judgments over its citizens; something I believe would be (quite rightly) resisted.
As far as the European Court is concerned they can only deal with matters of community law. There was a community law question as to jurisdiction, but as these laws only usually apply to member states it is unlikely thay will be successful.
If they were successful it may well create wider extra-jurisdictional recognition of judgments. This would lead to the practice of "forum shopping" for the jurisdiction with the least restrictive laws, and get the ruling enforced back home. This is in no-one's benefit. We already have a problem with this in the UK due to its relatively liberal defamation laws.
As to changing the law, I'm not sure there is any appetite to do so. These design rights are in line with patents (which last 20 years) and have the same purpose.
These laws are deemed to be in the benefit of society as a whole, and cater to its needs; not the needs of private individuals or corporations.
Even if it were changed it is unlikely to put the genie back in the bottle with respect to Star Wars. There is a general disdain for making laws which have a retrospective affect; which is what putting the now public domain property back into the hands of a private entity would have. There has been considerable criticism of the Sonny Bono law in the US which did just this.
Lucasfilm's best option if it fails to win its future appeals is to make products which are better than the unsanctioned ones, and restrict the marketing of unapproved items by enforcing their other IP rights.
