Court Opinion

ID: 9384879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-05 15:00:50.293175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:56.890698
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-1230   Document: 21     Page: 1   Filed: 04/05/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                   AHMAD ALJINDI,
                    Plaintiff-Appellant

                            v.

                   UNITED STATES,
                   Defendant-Appellee
                 ______________________

                       2023-1230
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
 in No. 1:21-cv-01295-SSS, Judge Stephen S. Schwartz.
                  ______________________

                 Decided: April 5, 2023
                 ______________________

    AHMAD JAMALEDDIN ALJINDI, Irvine, CA, pro se.

     IGOR HELMAN, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
 vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
 DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.
                  ______________________
Case: 23-1230    Document: 21      Page: 2    Filed: 04/05/2023

 2                                               ALJINDI   v. US

 PER CURIAM.
     Dr. Ahmad Aljindi appeals the decision of the U.S.
 Court of Federal Claims denying his motion for summary
 judgment and granting the government’s motion to dis-
 miss. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
                        BACKGROUND
     In 2021, Dr. Aljindi filed a complaint pro se at the
 Court of Federal Claims. The complaint alleged various
 claims, including employment discrimination; intellectual
 property theft; “negligence and tort,” Aljindi v. United
 States, No. 2022-1117, 2022 WL 1464476, at *1 (Fed. Cir.
 May 10, 2022) (Aljindi I); and “ongoing judicial corruption,
 abuse, and torture in addition to the Government’s abuse
 and torture,” id. (cleaned up). The Government moved to
 dismiss Dr. Aljindi’s complaint for failure to state a claim,
 and the Court of Federal Claims granted that motion.
     Dr. Aljindi appealed that dismissal to this court. See
 id. We affirmed the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of
 most of Dr. Aljindi’s claims because that court lacked juris-
 diction to consider them. Id. at *2–3. But we vacated-in-
 part the trial court’s dismissal because Dr. Aljindi’s com-
 plaint “mentioned copyrights law violations in the relief
 section,” which could “be liberally construed as a copyright
 infringement claim over which the Court of Federal Claims
 would have jurisdiction.” Id. at *3 (cleaned up). Accord-
 ingly, we remanded for the trial court “to consider the Gov-
 ernment’s position that Dr. Aljindi’s complaint fails to
 state a claim for copyright infringement.” Id.
     On remand, the Government moved to dismiss
 Dr. Aljindi’s copyright infringement claim for failure to
 state a claim. See Aljindi v. United States, No. 21-1295C,
 2022 WL 17330006, at *1 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 28, 2022)
Case: 23-1230      Document: 21     Page: 3    Filed: 04/05/2023

 ALJINDI   v. US                                              3

 (Aljindi II); SAppx. 1 1–4. The Government argued that
 Dr. Aljindi’s complaint failed to state a copyright infringe-
 ment claim because, even construed liberally, his com-
 plaint only alleged generally that the Government copied
 his ideas—and ideas cannot be copyrighted as a matter of
 law. See Aljindi II, 2022 WL 17330006, at *1. The Court
 of Federal Claims agreed and dismissed Dr. Aljindi’s copy-
 right infringement claim.
    Dr. Aljindi appeals.       We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
                          DISCUSSION
      We review de novo the Court of Federal Claims’ dismis-
 sal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. Turping
 v. United States, 913 F.3d 1060, 1064 (Fed. Cir. 2019). “A
 motion to dismiss . . . for failure to state a claim upon which
 relief can be granted is appropriate when the facts asserted
 by the plaintiff do not entitle him to a legal remedy.” Boyle
 v. United States, 200 F.3d 1369, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000). In
 reviewing such a dismissal, we “accept all well-pleaded fac-
 tual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences
 in [the appellant’s] favor.” Id. But “regardless of whether
 the plaintiff is proceeding pro se or is represented by coun-
 sel, conclusory allegations or legal conclusions masquerad-
 ing as factual conclusions will not suffice to prevent a
 motion to dismiss.” Scott v. United States, 134 Fed. Cl.
 755, 758 (2017) (quoting McZeal v. Spring Nextel Corp.,
 501 F.3d 1354, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2007)).
     On appeal, Dr. Aljindi argues that the Court of Federal
 Claims erred in dismissing his claim for copyright

     1   Citations to “SAppx.” refer to the Appendix at-
 tached to the appellee’s brief.
Case: 23-1230     Document: 21      Page: 4     Filed: 04/05/2023

 4                                                 ALJINDI   v. US

 infringement. Appellant’s Br. 2 4. Specifically, Dr. Aljindi
 argues that the “Government used [his] property in ALL
 formal AI Strategies published by the federal government
 . . . as [he had] discovered this entire scientific field in its
 entirety.” Appellant’s Br. 13. In other words, Dr. Aljindi
 argues that he discovered the scientific field of “Infor-
 mation Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Legacy In-
 formation Systems (LIS),” and thus that the government’s
 subsequent use of technologies in that field infringed upon
 his copyright. Complaint at 2, Aljindi v. United States,
 No. 1:21-cv-01295-SSS (Fed. Cl.) (Complaint); see also Ap-
 pellant’s Br. 10 (“[H]ow did these federal agencies . . . know
 about the relationship between AI, Information Security,
 and LIS without reading and taking my property and
 building on its formal scientific findings!”). 3
     As the Court of Federal Claims explained, the protec-
 tions of copyright do not “extend to any idea, procedure,
 process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or
 discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described,

     2    Because Dr. Aljindi’s opening brief on appeal in-
 cludes an attachment, we use the pagination provided in
 the header of his brief.
     3    Dr. Aljindi also argues that the trial court erred by
 dismissing his “Fifth Amendment Taking Claim.” Appel-
 lant’s Br. 4. In Aljindi I, however, we affirmed that court’s
 dismissal of this claim and remanded only for considera-
 tion of his copyright infringement claim.            2022 WL
 1464476, at *2–3; see also Aljindi v. United States, 143
 S. Ct. 436 (2022) (Mem.) (denying Dr. Aljindi’s petition for
 a writ of certiorari). Dr. Aljindi thus cannot re-raise this
 issue on appeal from that remand. See, e.g., Arizona v. Cal-
 ifornia, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983) (“[W]hen a court decides
 upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern
 the same issues in subsequent stages of the same case.”).
 Accordingly, we do not consider this issue further.
Case: 23-1230      Document: 21     Page: 5     Filed: 04/05/2023

 ALJINDI   v. US                                               5

 explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”
 17 U.S.C. § 102(b); see Aljindi II, 2022 WL 17330006, at *2.
 An individual can own a copyright on a literary form of
 their work, but not on “the facts and ideas” contained in
 that work. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation En-
 ters., 471 U.S. 539, 547 (1985). Put simply, “[c]opyright
 protection does not extend to ideas expressed in a copy-
 righted work.” Boyle v. United States, 200 F.3d 1369, 1373
 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
     Here, Dr. Aljindi’s complaint identifies the intellectual
 property allegedly infringed by the government as his “sci-
 entific work about Information Security, Artificial Intelli-
 gence (AI), and Legacy Information Systems (LIS).”
 Complaint at 2. On appeal, as he did before the Court of
 Federal Claims, Dr. Aljindi references his doctoral disser-
 tation. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. 10. Dr. Aljindi clarifies in
 his briefing, however, that his copyright claim is not
 founded on any alleged infringement of the copyrightable
 aspects of his dissertation; rather, he explains that “[t]he
 scientific intellectual property” at issue is “the discovery of
 the entire Information Security, AI, and LIS scientific field
 in its entirety and establishing this scientific field from
 scratch.” Appellant’s Br. 9; see also id. at 10 (Dr. Aljindi
 arguing that “[e]verything is based on [his] scientific re-
 search and [his] own property”); id. at 13 (Dr. Aljindi argu-
 ing that the “Government used [his] property in ALL
 formal AI Strategies published by the federal govern-
 ment.”). Dr. Aljindi does not identify any specific expres-
 sion of these ideas and concepts that the government
 allegedly copied; instead, he repeatedly contends generally
 that “everything built on top of [his] property is [his] prop-
 erty.” Id. at 10.
     Accordingly, even giving Dr. Aljindi’s pleadings the le-
 niency afforded to pro se plaintiffs, Ledford v. United
 States, 297 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2002), Dr. Aljindi
 has alleged only that the government infringed certain of
 his “idea[s], . . . concept[s], principle[s], or discover[ies],”
Case: 23-1230   Document: 21      Page: 6   Filed: 04/05/2023

 6                                             ALJINDI   v. US

 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), which by definition cannot be copy-
 righted. The Court of Federal Claims thus did not err in
 dismissing Dr. Aljindi’s copyright infringement claim.
    We have considered each of Dr. Aljindi’s remaining ar-
 guments and find them unpersuasive.
                       CONCLUSION
     For the above reasons, we affirm the Court of Federal
 Claims’ dismissal of Dr. Aljindi’s complaint.
                       AFFIRMED
                          COSTS
 No costs.