The Hollywood Reporter, via the BBC, writes that George Lucas has lost his lawsuit in the U.K. that would prevent the original Stormtrooper prop designer from selling replicas. Andrew Ainsworth had claimed that the costumes did not fall under full copyright protection because they were functional designs.

Lucas won a similar lawsuit in the U.S. against Ainsworth. The British courts did rule that the designer broke U.S. copyright law, but Ainsworth had already ceased selling the costumes in the States following the U.S. suit.

A Lucasfilm spokesman said that "virtually every other country in the world" would have upheld the copyright, but "an anomaly of British copyright law" doesn't completely protect assets created for films.