Design Basics, LLC v. Signature Constr., Inc., involved
a plaintiff that the court described as holding registered copyrights in
thousands of floor plans for suburban, single-family homes that are basic
schematic designs, largely conceptual in nature, and depict layouts for one-
and two-story single-family homes that include the typical rooms: a kitchen, a
dining area, a great room, a few bedrooms, bathrooms, a laundry area, a garage,
stairs, assorted closets, etc. The court described the plaintiff as a
“copyright troll” and noted that litigation proceeds had become the principal
revenue stream for the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued a contractor and related
businesses contending hat the defendants had infringed plaintiff’s copyrighted
floor plans.
The court in its analysis stated that Congress
amended the Copyright Act in 1990 to provide for copyright protection for
architectural works. Architectural works are defined under the Act as “the
design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium of expression,
including a building, architectural plans, or drawings. The work includes the
overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements
in the design but does not include individual standard features.”
The Design Basics, court noted that to establish copyright infringement, two elements
must be proven: (1) ownership of a valid copyright; and (2) copying of the
constituent elements of the work that are original. The first element in that
case was not disputed.
In addressing the copying of the constituent
elements of the work that are original, the court looked to two questions: (1) whether the defendant copied the
plaintiff’s protected work; and (2) whether the copying went so far as to
constitute improper appropriation.
To answer the first question, the court held that
plaintiff must show that the defendant copied the work. This is generally
established through circumstantial evidence that the defendant had access to
the plaintiff’s work and that there is enough similarity between the
plaintiff’s work and the defendant’s work to support a reasonable inference of
copying.
The second question (whether the copying
went so far as to constitute improper appropriation) required substantial
similarities between the defendant’s work and the protected elements in the
plaintiff’s work.
The court noted that “standard features” or scènes
à faire are elements that are commonplace, standard, or so
unavoidable that they do not distinguish one work from another, and that such
elements are not entitled to copyright
protection. The court held that “standard features” or scènes à faire in
house plans include the arrangement of the rooms: the kitchen is always close
to the dining room; the bedrooms will usually be clumped together and near a
bathroom; the door from the garage into the house usually leads to the kitchen
rather than the great room or living room.
The court also held that the “merger doctrine”
prevents the use of copyright to protect ideas or procedures. If an idea can
only be expressed in a few ways, then it would be possible to copyright every
one of its expressions. In such a case, under the “merger doctrine,” the
expression of that idea cannot receive copyright protection.
The court went on to hold that the plaintiff, by
copyrighting 2800 floor plans for affordable, multipurpose, suburban,
single-family homes was attempting to occupy the entire field. As a
result, the court found that the copyright protection for its plans was “thin,”
and that any proof of unlawful appropriation would require more than
substantial similarity, but would require “virtually identical” plans.
In Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers
Realty, Inc., 9 F.4th 803 (8th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S.
Ct. 2888, 213 L. Ed. 2d 1103 (2022), a
homebuilder that was the owner of a copyright in a home design filed suit for
copyright infringement against two real estate companies. The real estate
companies had been engaged by the owners of two of the houses constructed by
the plaintiff to assist the owners in selling their homes. During the process
of listing the homes for sale, the real estate companies, either directly or
through a contractor, produced sketches of the homes’ floorplans and
incorporated images of those floorplans in the listings for potential buyers to
consider.
At issue was an exception to the copyright
protection afforded architectural works which provides that the copyright
protection for an architectural work that has been constructed does not prevent
another party from making, distributing, or displaying pictures, paintings,
photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work if the building in
which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public
place.
The Eighth Circuit held that the floor plans did
not constitute a permissible pictorial representation of the architectural
works, because floorplans should not be considered “pictures.” The court noted
that the copyright statutes as a whole reveals that Congress knew how to
describe floorplans with more specificity than by simply referring to them as
“pictures,” and that the floor plans should be characterized as “technical
drawings” or “architectural plans,” rather than as “pictures.”
Author and Editor Stu Richeson is an attorney in the litigation section of Phelps Dunbar’s New Orleans office, primarily focusing on commercial litigation with an emphasis on construction matters, intellectual property issues and insurance.
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