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529US1

Unit: $U38

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208 WAL-MART STORES, INC. v. SAMARA BROTHERS, INC.

Opinion of the Court

only minor modiﬁcations, 16 of Samara’s garments, many of
In 1996, Wal-Mart
which contained copyrighted elements.
briskly sold the so-called knockoffs, generating more than
$1.15 million in gross proﬁts.

In June 1996, a buyer for JCPenney called a representative
at Samara to complain that she had seen Samara garments
on sale at Wal-Mart for a lower price than JCPenney was
allowed to charge under its contract with Samara. The
Samara representative told the buyer that Samara did not
supply its clothing to Wal-Mart. Their suspicions aroused,
however, Samara ofﬁcials launched an investigation, which
disclosed that Wal-Mart and several other major retailers—
Kmart, Caldor, Hills, and Goody’s—were selling the knock-
offs of Samara’s outﬁts produced by Judy-Philippine.

After sending cease-and-desist letters, Samara brought
this action in the United States District Court for the South-
ern District of New York against Wal-Mart, Judy-Philippine,
Kmart, Caldor, Hills, and Goody’s for copyright infringement
under federal law, consumer fraud and unfair competition
under New York law, and—most relevant for our purposes—
infringement of unregistered trade dress under § 43(a) of
the Lanham Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1125(a). All of the defendants
except Wal-Mart settled before trial.

After a weeklong trial, the jury found in favor of Samara
on all of its claims. Wal-Mart then renewed a motion for
judgment as a matter of law, claiming, inter alia, that there
was insufﬁcient evidence to support a conclusion that Sama-
ra’s clothing designs could be legally protected as distinctive
trade dress for purposes of § 43(a). The District Court de-
nied the motion, 969 F. Supp. 895 (SDNY 1997), and awarded
Samara damages, interest, costs, and fees totaling almost
$1.6 million, together with injunctive relief, see App. to Pet.
for Cert. 56–58. The Second Circuit afﬁrmed the denial of
the motion for judgment as a matter of law, 165 F. 3d 120
(1998), and we granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 808 (1999).