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Hi,
may be known by some people, but I just stumbled over it and many might not be aware.

In the 1975 Doctor Who episode there is an adversary called Sutekh (Egyptian God), who is a strong psychic controlling others. And he wears this helmet:




It was even a toy in 1975:

and currently sells in this form:


Current Farseer helmets even copy the Eye of Horus around the eye:


Still GW convinced a US-jury that the farseer design was GW IP and noone should be allowed to make something similar. Guess Doctor Who is not that well known in USA.

Thoughts?

The imagery is very ancient Egyptian - as are some of the "Eldar" symbols like the eye of Isha.

They share a common influence, it doesn't mean GW ripped off Doctor Who.

So apart from one symbol from ancient Egypt, what are the similarities again?

Black cape and a hat. An obvious rip-off.

As opposed to the Chapterhouse "tervigon" which was obviously not a rip-off.

That playset you pictured is a 2013 Toys'r'us exclusive.

Doctor Who hasn't always been the cult franchise it is today - for most of its run it was a mid-to-low budget series for children, and the BBC never made any serious attempts to merchandise it. Yep, there were some action figures released in the late 80s, but Sutekh wasn't amongst them.

Not that this has anything to do with IP law and the Chapterhouse case. I just wanted to point out that Dr. Who wasn't big or internationally recognized until the 2005 reboot. But if you ask me, while the motif around the eyes (and the choice of colors, which in the case of the Eldar Farseer is completely situational) is similar in both figures, there are also enough details that tell them apart from each other.

There's no way you will confuse a Sutekh toy for a GW miniature and vice versa, and when IP law is involved, that's all that matters.