Addressing a copyright dispute between an individual designer and developers for Donald Trump, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the developers. Oravec v. Sunny Isles Luxury Ventures, L.C., 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 10354 (11th Cir., May 14, 2008) (Wilson, C.J.).
Oravec was an individual designer who, in 1995 and 1996, developed a design for a high-rise building that featured the use of alternating concave and convex segments and elevator cores protruding through the building's roofline. Oravec registered these designs as architectural works with the United States Copyright Office in 1996 and 1997. Oravec alleged that the defendant developers designed a derivative work in violation of those copyrights—a twin high-rise condominium development in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, referred to as the "Trump Buildings." The district court had granted summary judgment to the defendants both because there was no substantial similarity between Oravec's copyrighted works and the Trump Buildings and because plaintiff Oravec had failed to secure a derivative work registration before filing suit.
Oravec appealed, arguing that 10 elements of his copyrighted works were infringed. The Eleventh Circuit first discussed the "fundamental axiom that copyright protection does not extend to ideas but only to particular expressions of ideas." The court held that similarities in the 10 elements were nothing more than at the "conceptual level" and that it appeared Oravec was claiming to hold a copyright in an idea.
The court considered each of the claimed elements, which included the twin tower design, elevator shafts, holes in the building, plazas, fountains and other elements with the Trump Buildings and concluded they were not "substantially similar." The court stated that "[w]hile it is true that Oravec's designs and the Trump Buildings have a number of features in common, those elements are similar only at the broadest level of generality." Protecting that level of generality would extend copyright law beyond its limits. To not grant summary judgment as to that argument "would effectively bar all other architects from incorporating these concepts into new and original designs."
The court also affirmed the summary judgment grant because Oravec had failed to secure an architectural work copyright on the derivative design before filing suit. Oravec had received a copyright registration for the derivative work as a "pictorial, graphic or sculptural" (PGS) work, but not an architectural work. Oravec argued that the court could consider PGS registration as an architectural work registration under the "effective registration" doctrine, but that is only applicable when a party registers a derivative work that references prior unregistered works, thus effectively registering the prior unregistered work. The court held that Oravec's reliance on this doctrine was "misplaced" because Oravec had created no prior unregistered architectural work. Therefore, Oravec's PGS copyright did not allow him to bring suit for infringement by an architectural work.
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