The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Tuesday dismissed an appeal against Michaels Stores Inc. and Craft Smith that alleged the companies infringed on a designer’s copyrights and trade dress rights with a “knockoff” version of a personal planner.
EC Design has sold its personal organizer, the LifePlanner, since 2007. In 2015, Craft Smith reached out to Michaels about creating a planner like the LifePlanner. Craft Smith then designed a spiral-bound planner that used the same pagination and sheet counts as the LifePlanner, calling its product the Recollections Planner.