Here Be Dragons: Copyright Claim Slayed In The IPEC

• Law Firm: Maucher Jenkins
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Copyright
• Author: Dr. Janet Strath
• Published date: 12 May 2023

The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) has found the fictional dragon which appeared in a John Lewis Christmas advert and in a spin-off illustrated children's book entitled "Excitable Edgar" did not infringe the copyright in a self-published children's picture book called "Fred the Fire-sneezing Dragon" written by Fay Evans.

Background

Fred the Fire-sneezing Dragon was an illustrated rhyming story officially launched on 7 September 2017, which featured Fred, a sad and lonely young dragon living in a human world who accidentally emitted fire when he sneezed, which annoyed the human characters as the uncontrollable fiery emissions caused books and pencils to burn, ice-cream in the school tuck shop to melt and set fire to trees while on a cross-country run. However, Fred's fiery sneezes ultimately saved the day when the school canteen oven broke, and he was able to win the affection of the humans in the story by cooking the school lunch with his flames.

John Lewis's Christmas advert of 2019 featured an excitable young dragon called "Edgar", who was also living in a human world. In the advert, Edgar was shown running to help two children build a snowman but, in his excitement, he produced flames which reduced the snowman to a puddle. He was also shown running to join skaters on the village ice-rink but his fiery emissions inadvertently melted the ice so the skaters were all left standing in cold water. He tried to control his excitement at the unveiling of the splendid Christmas tree in the village square by tying his mouth shut with a scarf, but flames shot out of his ears and burnt the tree to the ground. Edgar retreated sadly to his home, only coming out when his best friend, a young girl, gave him a present, a Christmas pudding, which he carried proudly into the village Christmas banquet. Edgar used his incendiary powers to cook the pudding, to cheers from all.

Issues

Ms Evans' alleged that John Lewis's advert and Excitable Edgar contained "striking similarities" to her self-published book, particularly in respect of the appearance of the dragons, both being child-sized, of a green colour, had ribbed fronts, triangular spikes on their heads and backs, two arms, shared some of the same facial features and were of the same general body shape. She also claimed that narrative features of John Lewis's advert and Excitable Edgar has been copied from her book: the dragon, despite irritating and annoying the people in the story by failing to control its...