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Friday, June 25, 2004

Indiana Decisions - Two from 7th Circuit Today

PIVOT POINT INT'L v. CHARLENE PRODUCTS (ND Il.) [In this case, Frank H. Esterbrook of the 7th Circuit was sitting by designation as the district judge]

Before RIPPLE, KANNE and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Pivot Point International, Inc. (“Pivot Point”), brought this cause of action against Charlene Products, Inc., and its president Peter Yau (collectively “Charlene”), for copyright infringement pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 501(b). The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that the copied subject matter, a mannequin head, was not copyrightable under the Copyright Act of 1976 (“1976 Act”), 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion. * * *

Conclusion. The Mara mannequin is subject to copyright protection. We therefore must reverse the summary judgment in favor of Charlene Products and Mr. Yau; the case is remanded for a trial on Pivot Point’s infringement claim. Furthermore, because Charlene Products and Mr. Yau have not prevailed on the merits at this point, the judgment of the district court with respect to attorneys’ fees must be vacated. The crossappeal with respect to attorneys’ fees is moot. Pivot Point may recover its costs in this court.
REVERSED AND REMANDED; CROSS-APPEAL DISMISSED

KANNE, Circuit Judge, dissenting. Writing for the majority, Judge Ripple has applied his usual thorough and scholarly approach to this difficult intellectual property problem; however, I cannot join the majority opinion because I am not persuaded that the “Mara” mannequin is copyrightable. All functional items have aesthetic qualities. If copyright provided protection for functional items simply because of their aesthetic qualities, Congress’s policy choice that gives less protection in patent than copyright would be undermined. * * *

USA v. JONES, WILLIAM J. (SD Ind., Judge Tinder)
Before BAUER, POSNER, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
KANNE, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted William J. Jones under 18 U.S.C. § 656 on nineteen counts of stealing in excess of $1000 from Bank One’s automatic teller machines (“ATMs”). Jones, who had access to the ATMs through his job as an ATM repairman, challenges his conviction by arguing that § 656 does not apply to him, as he was not an “officer, director, agent or employee of, or connected in any capacity with” Bank One. We affirm the judgment of the district court, finding that under a plain reading of the statute, Jones, who worked for a company contracted byBank One to maintain and service its ATMs, was connected with Bank One and subject to § 656’s prohibitions. * * *

In the face of a broadly-worded statute, which by its plain terms applies to those “connected in any capacity” with Bank One, see 18 U.S.C. § 656, Jones unconvincingly urges us to limit § 656’s reach to only those categories of persons explicitly enumerated in the statute, i.e. officers, directors, agents, or employees of the banking institution in question. He argues, without citing supporting case law, that the words, “or connected in any capacity with,” renders the enumerated list preceding that phrase meaningless. To avoid such a result, he reasons, the catch-all phrase should be ignored in favor of the limited class of offenders.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 25, 2004 01:04 PM
Posted to Indiana Decisions