Yonay v. Paramount Pictures Corp.

In suit claiming 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick infringed 1983 magazine article about real-life fighter pilot training program that inspired original 1986 Top Gun film, Ninth Circuit affirms summary judgment in defendants' favor, finding that Maverick did not contain any substantial similarity of protectable expression with nonfiction magazine article.

In 1983, California Magazine published journalist Ehud Yonay's 11‑page nonfiction article about the Navy's Fighter Weapons School known as Top Gun and the experience of flying F‑14 fighter jets. Shortly after the article's publication, Yonay granted Paramount Pictures all rights in the article in exchange for a fixed payment and credit in future films that were produced under the agreement and that were substantially based on the article. Paramount released the blockbuster Top Gun in 1986 with a "suggested by" credit referencing the article. After Yonay's death in 2012, his widow, Shosh, and son, Yuval, became owners