Copyright dispute over the use of software code & technical drawings; The Copyright Act; 17 USC §§ 102(a)-(b); Feist Publ’ns Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co.; Infringement; Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.; Copyright certificate; § 410(c); Whether defendants’ copying of plaintiffs’ technical drawings to reproduce the control system in them sounded in patent law rather than copyright; Mazer v. Stein; Baker v. Selden; National Med. Care, Inc. v. Espiritu (SD WV); A “useful article”; § 101; Niemi v. American Axle Mfg. & Holding Inc. (ED MI); Gusler v. Fischer (SD NY); Whether defendants’ use of plaintiffs’ software source code constituted prohibited copying; Sega Enters., Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc. (9th Cir.); The doctrines of merger & “scenes a faire”; Murray Hill Publ’ns Inc. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] In this copyright dispute over the use of software source code and technical drawings for an industrial control system related to plastic injection molding, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the copyright infringement claim as to the drawings because it sounded in patent law rather than copyright law. But it reversed as to the software code, concluding there were material questions of fact. The parties entered into an oral agreement that plaintiff-Rogers would develop a rotary turntable control system for defendant-Elder and his company, defendant-Multiject. Elder asked Rogers for the design plans (Design 3) and source code, and days after Rogers gave Elder the information Elder informed Rogers that Multiject was going with defendant-RSW. RSW used Rogers’s design when manufacturing the control systems. Two years later, Rogers obtained copyright certificates for the code and the drawings, and two weeks after that, he and his company, plaintiff-RJ Control Consultants, sued for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and several state law claims. The district court granted defendants summary judgment on both federal claims. It later denied Rogers’s motion for reconsideration, reconsidered its denial, and then again denied the motion. On appeal, the court agreed with the district court that “the use of the Design 3 drawing to manufacture a control system is not an act of copyright infringement.” The drawings themselves were protected by copyright. However, this protection “does not extend to the use of those drawings to create the useful article described in those drawings, as patent law—with its stricter standards requiring novelty—governs such use protection.” But as to the software code, the court concluded that expert testimony was required, noting the technology and “the questions necessary to establish whether that technology is properly protected under the Copyright Act” were complex.