How can a pattern be copyrighted? Copyrights are for ORIGINAL DESIGNS ONLY. There are no original designs. The quilts you see today are all made from patterns created hundreds of years ago. I see pages and pages of red white and blue 9 patch quilt patterns. These folks did not design the 9 patch pattern, nor did they design the concept it's self. ANYONE can put red, white and blue together in any combination and it would not be a copyright infringement. If this were the case all quilts made today would be illegal. The words they use are mostly the same words used when the blocks were made back in the 1700's and before.
Here is a whole page full of quilt blocks designed long before many of us were born but touted as original designs today.
http://earlywomenmasters.net/quilts/LAC/index.html
The method of placing the blocks can not be copyrighted. The method of cutting the blocks can not be copyrighted. The method of sewing the blocks together can not be copyrighted. Even if I made a quilt exactly like one I saw online, in a store, in a show it would be legal as the ORIGINAL BLOCKS are not copyrighted. Even the style of the quilt is public domain although many try to claim it as their own. Many of blocks and quilts are copies of quilts made long ago and shown in vintage magazines. You can change the colors but its still the same quilt. Even many of the instructions are the same as printed in the turn of the 20th century (late 1800's- early 1900's)
Now if someone, somewhere, came up with a totally new block not inspired by someone else it could be copyrighted.