Opinion ID: 659340
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Modified MPO Program

Text: 24 The district court also concluded that LSI's modified MPO program infringed K-T's Licensed Materials. As noted above, the modified MPO program was the end result of LSI's surgical efforts to remove only the infringing language from the original MPO program. As this effort was partially successful, we cannot affirm the district court's conclusion that the modified MPO program infringes K-T's copyright merely by making a cursory comparison of the modified MPO program's language with that of K-T's materials. 25 As with the original MPO program, there is no doubt that LSI copied K-T's materials in creating its modified MPO program. As noted above, evidence of LSI access to K-T's materials and the substantial similarity of the original MPO program overwhelmingly suggest copying. The same is true for the modified MPO program, which is just a post factum rearrangement of the original MPO program, itself a wholesale plagiarism of the definitions and processes that were licensed to K-T. Our finding of copying does not, however, lead automatically to the conclusion of infringement: the question remains whether LSI's modified MPO program copied any protectable elements of K-T's Licensed Materials. 14 We conclude that it did. 26 The main purpose or function of K-T's Licensed Materials is to teach managers how to analyze their own decision making, and how to make the best decision in each decision-making context. Clearly this basic idea of a management training program is unprotectable. 15 Likewise unprotectable is the more specific idea of training managers by asking them a series of questions about their decision-making landscape, and then--based on their answers--suggesting a preferred decision-making process. 27 At the other end of the abstraction spectrum, the specific words, phrases, and sentences used to formulate the questions and processes clearly constitute protected expression. 16 But the intermediate levels of abstraction, consisting of such factors as the structure, sequence, and organization of a copyrighted work, are more problematic: courts' judgments about the protectability vel non of such elements are inevitably ad hoc and fact specific. 17 In this case, we conclude that the modified MPO program copied substantial protectable elements of K-T's Licensed Materials and thus infringed K-T's copyright. 28 Like the district court, we are unimpressed by LSI's shallow efforts to remove infringing language from the MPO program. Although it is true that the modified MPO program does not identically trace the language of the definitions and processes contained in K-T's Licensed Materials (as did the original MPO program), the modified MPO program's language is still substantially similar to that of K-T's materials. True, you solve the problem yourself has been replaced with you reach a solution alone. And you consult one-to-one with those that report to you replaces you share the problem with relevant subordinates. But such modifications do not completely dispel the similarity of expression shared by infringed and infringing materials. 29 LSI argues that the modified MPO program is merely substantially similar to unprotectable conceptual elements of K-T's materials, that the modified MPO program communicates the same concepts as K-T's Licensed Materials, but with different expression. We disagree. 30 As an analogy, consider the familiar quote from Romeo and Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? 18 Reformulating this quote in a manner analogous to LSI's modification of K-T's copyrighted language, we might write: Ah Romeo, Romeo! Why did you have to be born Romeo? Are these two quotes alike only in conceptual substance? Obviously not! Yes, they both express the same concept: why did Juliet have to fall in love with Romeo, scion of Montague--her family's bitterest foe? But they are also quite alike in expression. They are not identical, but they are alike. Both sentences embrace the dramatic repetition of Romeo's name. Both sentences are phrased as questions. Both have the quality of a sigh: the gasping resignation of a woman marvelling at the fateful irony of life. Although the two sentences are not identical, they are manifestly similar in expression, as well as in conceptual content. 31 The language of LSI's modified MPO program is likewise similar to that of K-T's materials: their paragraphs are about the same size, their phrases are similar, their ideas are presented in the same order; in short, parts of the modified MPO program are but a transparent, syntactic rearrangement of portions of K-T's copyrighted materials. While no longer identical to those materials, the modified MPO program still bears many telltale signs of its origins. It is still a copy--still a child of infringement. 32 Additionally, we conclude that the modified MPO program infringes upon elements of K-T's materials, which--although existing at a higher level of organizational abstraction--are nonetheless protectable under copyright law. As we have noted, generalizing about the degree of copyright protection owed to intermediate levels of abstraction, such as the structure, sequence, and organization of copyrighted works, is difficult. A fairly broad consensus has emerged, however, that such non-literal elements of computer programs and other copyrightable works may be protected. 19 Generally speaking, we join that consensus. 20 33 LSI argues that the V-Y Model, which was described in the materials licensed to K-T, amounts to a law of nature like Newton's Law of Gravitation, the constant W (for discussing the geometry of circles and spheres) or Einstein's E = MC 2 . Specifically, LSI contends that the eight definitions and five processes that comprise the V-Y Model are fundamental, ineluctable aspects of a managerial relationship--that intelligent discussion of managerial decision-making is impossible without specific reference to these universal definitions and processes. Although there is a kernel of truth in this assertion, it is a small kernel: in the main, we disagree with LSI's self-aggrandizing characterization of the V-Y Model. 34 Some unprotectable fundamental concepts are undoubtedly buried in the definitions and processes of the V-Y Model. For example, the idea that a manager can make a decision without consulting his subordinates is unprotectable: it is simply one of the relational possibilities that exist between managers and subordinates. As noted above, however, the specific ways that the questions and processes are formulated--the exact words, phrases, and sentences used to describe decision-making processes or questions--are protectable expression. And other, more abstract organizing principles of the V-Y Model are protectable as well. 35 In dissecting the problems of management decision-making into five processes and eight questions, Vroom and Yetton unquestionably originated a useful model of managerial decision-making. Yet, they obviously did not discover the single, unique, unavoidable description of human managerial relations. In creating the MPO program, for example, Jago added four more questions to the eight that were part of the V-Y Model. Such an expansion of the original theory indicates that the first eight questions did not exhaustively and uniquely portray human management relations. 36 Close analysis of the V-Y processes and questions reveals that the ideas they encapsulate can be packaged in different ways. For example, one process (designated AII) instructs a manager to gather information from subordinates, then make the relevant management decision himself. The process states that the manager may or may not tell subordinates the nature of the problem in getting information from them. This makes two separate logical possibilities, so this process could--in a different model--be broken into two different processes. In short, not only does the V-Y Model fail to describe all conceivable features of the management decision-making landscape, it also fails to organize and package its managerial truisms in a single, unique, ineluctable way: there are many ways of organizing those same insights. 37 This point is driven home by examining the way different processes and questions are designated in the V-Y Model. The five processes of that model are designated respectively AI, AII, CI, CII, and GII. How did LSI designate the five processes of its modified--and putatively non-infringing--MPO program? Not surprisingly, AI, AII, CI, CII, and GII. Are these designations fundamental constants supplied by nature, like W for a circle or Planck's constant in quantum physics? Clearly not, they are arbitrarily selected characters: the V-T Model would work just as well if its processes were designated a, b, c, d, and e! These features of the V-Y Model are thus original, protectable expression, not fundamental constants of nature; and LSI's copying of these features--and other related features--is thus technically infringing. 21 38 LSI obviously uses V-Y Model designations in its modified MPO program, and does so intentionally. The V-Y Model has been wildly successful, and the MPO program could benefit from that success by incorporating recognizable, original expression from the V-Y Model, whether that expression is the verbatim formulation of questions and processes, the organization of the model, or the arbitrary designations of the model's constituent parts. But the MPO program is not supposed to benefit from such incorporation. It was precisely the right to benefit from such copying that Vroom and Yetton licensed exclusively to K-T for half a million dollars. 39 LSI attempts to obscure this point by noting that the V-Y Model is reproduced, discussed, and described all over the United States, suggesting that the V-Y Model is in the public domain and thus unprotectable. But protected expression does not lose its protection simply because it is widely disseminated. If the V-Y Model is widely discussed, described, and reproduced, it is presumably with the permission of the copyright holder. Alternatively, it is because such discussion, description, and reproduction constitutes fair use. 22 [F]air use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, new reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. 23 Conspicuously absent from the list of fair uses is use for commercial purposes, which is exactly the sort of use LSI wants us to approve. 40 When Vroom and Yetton sold K-T an exclusive license to copyrighted materials, which included the V-Y Model, they signed away the right to copy, at least for commercial purposes, protectable elements of the V-Y Model. LSI may not now incorporate substantially similar expression into computer programs for commercial sale: it was precisely the right to make such commercial use of the V-Y Model that Vroom and Yetton sold to K-T for hundreds of thousands of dollars. 41 In summary, we conclude that the district court did not err in holding that the modified MPO program infringed K-T's Licensed Materials. As LSI was partially successful in removing infringing expression from the MPO program, the judgment that the modified MPO program infringes K-T's copyright is a fairly close one. Nonetheless, we agree with the district court that, although the modified MPO program does not identically trace the language of the definitions and processes delineated in K-T's Licensed Materials, it infringes substantial portions of the protected expression contained in those materials. 42