In Unicolors v. H&M (2022), the Supreme Court held that a copyright registration is not invalidated by an inaccuracy the applicant did not know was inaccurate — whether the error was one of fact or law.
In Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin (9th Cir. 2014), the court upheld a stock agency's database registrations that did not name every photographer or title, deferring to three decades of Copyright Office practice on registering collections.
In Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick (2010), a unanimous Supreme Court held that copyright registration under § 411(a) is a claim-processing precondition, not a limit on federal subject-matter jurisdiction — saving a class settlement that swept in unregistered works.
In Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com (2019), a unanimous Supreme Court held that a copyright owner cannot sue for infringement until the Register of Copyrights has acted on the application — not merely received it.
