AS SCIENCE fiction battles go, it has echoes of a lone X-wing fighter taking on the Death Star at the climax of Star Wars.

A British engineer who works out of a modest workshop in Twickenham, southwest London, is about to engage in a legal battle with George Lucas, the multibillionaire film-maker and creator of the Star Wars franchise, over the right to make replica costumes.

Andrew Ainsworth, who helped Lucas to design more than a dozen characters for the first Star Wars film in the late 1970s, is seeking legal representation to defend himself against a $20 million (£10.5 million) claim lodged at the High Court by the American producer.

Lucas, who has made an estimated $3.5 billion fortune from his series of sci-fi films and related merchandise, sued his former designer when he discovered that Mr Ainsworth was reproducing costumes of Stormtroopers — the distinctive foot soldiers used by the evil Empire to crush rebel forces.

The first round of legal action went to Lucas, who won a district court judgment in California last month awarding him damages of $20 million. Solicitors acting for the director have issued proceedings in Britain to enforce the Californian judgment.

Mr Ainsworth told The Times that he would contest the action because he believed that he held the intellectual rights to the design. Andrew Hobson, a solicitor who has discussed the deposition with Mr Ainsworth but will not be acting for him on the case, said that he had seen no evidence that Ainsworth had surrendered his design rights. “In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, the designer is the first owner of the copyright,” he said. “In the particulars of the claim Lucas has served, they don’t give any details of how transfer of title came about.”

Mr Ainsworth claims that his relationship with Lucas’s film company, Star Wars Productions, was an ad hoc arrangement without contracts. He made approximately £30,000 for his work in 1976, but his recent costume business has been more lucrative. He sells complete replicas of Stormtrooper outfits for up to £1,500, and has sold more than 500 helmets, which cost at least £300. He said that his finances had been drained by the £150,000 legal costs of contesting the US court’s jurisdiction.

“Any legal assistance would be greatly appreciated,” he said.

“I am looking for a little force to be with me.”

STAR WARS AND LEGAL SQUABBLES

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