Opinion ID: 4680544
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scènes à Faire and Merger

Text: In Lexington Homes we explained at length that under the scènes à faire and merger doctrines, Design Basics holds only thin copyright protection in its floor plans. Just a brief recap is needed here. Standard elements in a genre—called scènes à faire 4 in copyright law—get no copyright protection. Scènes à faire are “so rudimentary, commonplace, standard, or unavoidable that they do not serve to distinguish one work within a class of works from another.” Bucklew v. Hawkins, Ash, Baptie & Co., 329 F.3d 923, 929 (7th Cir. 2003). If standard elements received copyright protection, then the creation of a single work in a genre would prevent others from contributing to that genre because the copyright owner would have exclusive rights in all of the genre’s basic elements. We explained in Lexington Homes that Design Basics’ floor plans largely consist of scènes à faire. 858 F.3d at 1102– 03. Every plan has a kitchen, a great room or living room, a dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms, and so forth. The arrangements of the rooms are also largely scènes à faire. The kitchen is always close to the dining room; the bedrooms will usually be clumped together and near a bathroom; the door from the garage into the house usually leads to the kitchen rather than the great room or living room. What accounts for these familiar arrangements? Convention in this genre, certainly, which brings this particular type Universal Athletic Sales Co. v. Salkeld, 511 F.2d 904, 907 (3d Cir. 1975); Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F.2d 464, 468 (2d Cir. 1946). 4 French for “scenes for action.” Scènes à faire, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019). No. 19-2716 17 of architectural work within the scènes à faire doctrine. 5 But the arrangements are also dictated by functionality. The kitchen is near the dining room so that food can easily be moved between the two rooms. The bedrooms aren’t near the front hall because guests don’t venture into the bedrooms. The functionality of the room arrangements is where the doctrine of merger comes in. Merger arises from § 102(b), which, as we’ve explained, codifies the idea–expression dichotomy and specifies that copyright never extends to an idea, procedure, principle, or concept. Copyright protects only expression; patent law is the proper instrument for protecting functionality. See Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 217 (2003). Merger doctrine prevents the use of copyright to protect an idea or procedure. If an idea or procedure can be expressed in only a few ways, it is easy to copyright every form in which the idea can be expressed, indirectly protecting the idea itself. 4 NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT § 13.03[B][3]; see also Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble Co., 379 F.2d 675, 678–79 (1st Cir. 1967). To guard against this kind of overprotection, when an idea can be expressed in only limited ways, courts say that the expression “merges” into the idea and cannot receive copyright protection. Lexington Homes, 858 F.3d at 1102. For example, the forms used to implement a particular method of accounting are an expression of the accounting method and cannot be copyrighted. Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879). The same is true for the rules of a sweepstakes competition: because there are a limited number of ways to 5 Recall as well that under the definition of an architectural work, “individual standard features” are not protected. 17 U.S.C. § 101. 18 No. 19-2716 explain the rules, the expression of the rules receives little, if any, copyright protection. Morrissey, 379 F.2d at 678–79. Merger also applies to the Design Basics home plans. The functional requirements of living spaces dictate that particular rooms be placed close together. And the general concept of the affordable, multipurpose, suburban, single-family home also contributes to the design. This isn’t to say that there is only one way to arrange the rooms in this homedesign genre. But there are only a limited number of possible floor plans, and by creating more than 2,800 of these plans, Design Basics has attempted to occupy the entire field. We wondered in Lexington Homes if “there is any blueprint for a single-family home anywhere in the country that Design Basics could not match to one of its own designs.” 858 F.3d at 1103. If Design Basics held any more than thin copyright protection in its floor plans, it would own nearly the entire field of suburban, single-family home design. The McNicholas report reinforces our holding in Lexington Homes that the copyright in the Design Basics floor plans is thin. Although McNicholas set out to demonstrate the unique nature of the ten plans at issue here, his report demonstrates just the opposite. As we’ve explained, the report describes each floor plan in generic and often nearly identical language. The report shows that each floor plan uses the same design features to accomplish the same ends. Accordingly, although Design Basics asks us to revisit our decision in Lexington Homes, we see no reason to do so.6 6 Design Basics urges us to instead adopt the First Circuit’s approach in T-Peg, Inc. v. Vermont Timber Works, Inc., 459 F.3d 97 (1st Cir. 2006), which looked to similarities in the “overall form” of the buildings to assess architectural copyright infringement. Id. at 113–14. Design Basics is wrong to suggest that our approach differs from the First Circuit’s. No. 19-2716 19 To the contrary, we reiterate our conclusion that Design Basics holds only thin copyright in its floor plans. Id. at 1101–02. And in this particular architectural genre in which copyright protection is thin, proving unlawful appropriation takes more than a substantial similarity between the plaintiff’s work and the defendant’s work. Instead, only a virtually identical plan infringes the plaintiff’s copyrighted plan. Incredible Techs., Inc. v. Virtual Techs., Inc., 400 F.3d 1007, 1013–14 (7th Cir. 2005).