A court battle over the intellectual property rights to designs for tie-dyed T-shirts seems to have left a federal judge a little red in the face.

In Banzai Inc. v. Broder Bros. Co., U.S. District Judge Bruce W. Kauffman not only tossed out all claims of copyright infringement brought by the plaintiff but ordered that it pay the defendants' attorney fees and costs as well.

Banzai claimed in the suit that Broder Bros. stole two of its designs for tie-dye patterns -- one using an orange-and-yellow color scheme, the other a red-white-and-blue scheme, both rendered in spiral patterns.

But Kauffman found there was nothing new in the tie-dying in a spiral design and that Banzai's color combinations lacked any originality deserving of copyright protection.

"Plaintiff admits that the tie-dye spiral design is common and not proprietary," Kauffman wrote, "so its only unique contribution was to select the colors red, white, and blue in one design and orange and yellow in the other."

Kauffman found that neither color combo showed even "a modicum of creativity."

"Red, white, and blue are commonly matched colors, perhaps most notably on the American flag. Orange and yellow are adjacent in the spectrum of colors visible to the human eye," Kauffman wrote.

"Placing these basic, predictable color combinations into a pre-existing design does not satisfy the minimum creativity necessary to establish a valid copyright," Kauffman wrote

As a result, Kauffman concluded that suing over the alleged theft of such copyrighted designs amounted to a misuse of copyright law.

"Plaintiff's claim, based upon its selection of two or three commonly-combined colors in what it admits is an otherwise unprotectable design, is objectively unreasonable and frivolous," Kauffman wrote.

In an order attached to his opinion, Kauffman granted a defense motion for summary judgment and directed the Copyright Office to cancel the two copyright registrations issued to Banzai.

Kauffman also ordered Broder Bros. to submit a bill of costs setting forth its costs and reasonable attorney fees and said Banzai would have 10 days to respond to the bill.

Lawyers for Banzai had argued that no attorney fees should be awarded because the U.S. Copyright Office had issued certificates of registration for two of Banzai's tie-dye designs and that, "as a litigant, plaintiff is entitled to rely on such a determination."

Kauffman flatly rejected that argument, saying in a footnote that Banzai "should have been aware that issuance [of certificates of registration by the Copyright Office] is not dispositive as to copyrightability."

The ruling is a victory for attorneys Timothy D. Pecsenye, Joel L. Dion and Emily J. Barnhart of Blank Rome.

Banzai was represented by attorneys Clifford E. Haines and James A. Wells of Haines & Associates.

In an interview, Wells said he respectfully disagreed with Kauffman's ruling and that he believes Banzai's designs exhibited sufficient creativity to warrant copyright protection. For now, Wells said, the company and its lawyers are "considering all appeal options available to us."

Pecsenye (pronounced Peh-SEE-knee) said Monday that he was "obviously thrilled" with the judge's decision but that he cannot yet estimate how much Broder will be seeking in its petition for fees and costs.