U.s. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
| Publication year | 2013 |
| Pages | 157 |
From the Courts
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Summaries of selected Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Opinions appear on a space-available basis. The summaries are prepared for the Colorado Bar Association (CBA) by Katherine Campbell and Frank Gibbard, licensed Colorado attorneys. They are provided as a service by the CBA and are not the official language of this Court. The CBA cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the summaries. Full copies of the Tenth Circuit decisions are accessible from the CBA website: www.cobar.org (click on "Opinions/Rules/Statutes").
No. 12-1135. Enterprise Mgmt. Ltd., Inc. v. Warrick. 05/21/2013. D.Colo. Judge O'Brien. Copyright Infringement-Organizational Management Chart-Original and Creative Expression of Ideas-Registration as Prerequisite to Suit.
Plaintiff Mary Lippitt created an organizational management chart and registered it with the copyright office in 1987. In 1996, she revised and updated the diagram, which she registered in 2000 and 2003. Defendant incorporated plaintiff's diagram in his teaching and consulting materials, and plaintiff sued him for copyright infringement. Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiff could not prove she held a valid copyright because she could not produce the 1987 diagram, the diagram was not copyrightable, and defendant's materials did not infringe on any protected expression. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant, and plaintiff appealed.
The Tenth Circuit reviewed the two elements of a copyright infringement claim. A plaintiff must show (1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) that protectable constituent elements of the work had been copied. Defendant argued that the work was not eligible for copyright protection because the diagram was inextricably woven with the ideas depicted and lacked the creativity necessary to merit copyright protection. A copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the underlying idea itself, as long as the idea is capable of many different modes of expression. There are many ways to express the ideas depicted in plaintiff's diagrams, so they were copyrightable. Also, the elements of her diagram, although common shapes and symbols, were selected, coordinated, and arranged in an original way, as required to be copyrightable.
In addition, the Circuit found that plaintiff had met her burden to show that she had registered her work before bringing suit, noting that although copyright registration is not a prerequisite for copyright protection, it is a necessary prerequisite to suing for infringement. The Circuit also found that plaintiff met her burden of producing evidence of defendant's infringement, because he admitted using the diagrams. Accordingly, the district court's judgment was reversed and the case was remanded.
Nos. 12-1086 & 12-1115. Schneider v. City of Grand Junction Police Dep't. 06/05/2013. D.Colo. Judge Matheson. Rape by Police Officer-Constitutional Right to Bodily Integrity-Supervisory Liability -Municipal Liability.
Plaintiff alleged that she was raped by a police officer for the City of Grand Junction, Colorado, the day after he responded to her 911 call about an altercation with her teenage son. The officer was fired and, a few days later, he committed suicide. Plaintiff sued the police department and the officer's supervisors, asserting violation of her substantive due process right to bodily integrity. She brought claims under 42 USC § 1983 of inadequate hiring and training of the assaulting officer, inadequate investigation of a prior sexual assault claim against him, and inadequate discipline and supervision of him. Conceding that the officer had raped plaintiff, defendants moved...
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