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ATC Distribution Group, Inc. v. Whatever It Takes Transmissions & Parts, Inc.

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
402 F.3d 700 (2005)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A parts catalog, its numbering system, and its illustrations are not eligible for copyright protection when they lack a minimal degree of creativity, such as when the organization is functional and routine, the numbers are arbitrarily assigned, and the illustrations are slavish copies of existing images.


Facts:

  • ATC Distribution Group, Inc. ('ATC') published a transmission parts catalog that its employee, Kenny Hester, had worked on since his time at ATC's predecessor company, HTP.
  • The catalog's numbering system categorized parts by brand, transmission type, and part type, but the specific numbers assigned to parts within sub-categories were essentially random.
  • The illustrations in the catalog were created by an artist who made sketched copies of photographs from a competitor's catalog.
  • The parts and their corresponding illustrations were arranged in the catalog in an order consistent with the assembly and disassembly of a transmission.
  • Hester left ATC in October 1999 to form a competing company, Whatever It Takes Transmissions ('WITT').
  • Hester obtained an electronic copy of the ATC catalog, created a nearly identical catalog for WITT, and used many of ATC's part numbers in WITT's advertising and internal processes.
  • In March 2000, several other ATC employees (the 'North Carolina Defendants') resigned and joined WITT, taking with them copies of customer lists and other financial reports.
  • Some of the former ATC employees began soliciting their former customers for business on behalf of WITT.

Procedural Posture:

  • ATC Distribution Group, Inc. sued Whatever It Takes Transmissions ('WITT'), Kenny Hester, and several former employees ('the North Carolina Defendants') in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.
  • ATC's complaint included twelve counts, alleging copyright infringement, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, and other claims.
  • All parties moved for summary judgment.
  • The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the copyright infringement claim, holding that the catalog, part numbers, and illustrations lacked the originality required for copyright protection.
  • The district court also granted summary judgment to the defendants on most of ATC's other state-law claims.
  • ATC, as the appellant, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment on seven of its claims to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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Issue:

Does a parts catalog, its numbering system, and its illustrations possess the requisite originality for copyright protection when the system's creative elements are unprotectable ideas and the expression of those ideas is functional, random, or lacks substantial variation from pre-existing works?


Opinions:

Majority - Chief Judge Boggs

No, a parts catalog, its numbering system, and its illustrations do not possess the requisite originality for copyright protection under these circumstances. To be copyrightable, a work must possess at least a minimal degree of creativity. Here, the creative aspects of ATC's classification scheme are unprotectable ideas under 17 U.S.C. § 102(b). The expression of those ideas, the part numbers themselves, are not copyrightable for two reasons: 1) under the merger doctrine, where there is only one way to express an idea, the idea and expression merge and are not protectable, and 2) the assignment of numbers was a random, arbitrary process lacking originality. Similarly, the catalog as a compilation fails because its selection and arrangement of data is a 'mechanical or routine' process that is 'practically inevitable' and lacks creativity. Finally, the illustrations are unprotectable as they are 'slavish copies' of photographs that lack the 'substantial variation' required for a derivative work to be considered original.



Analysis:

This case reinforces the Supreme Court's holding in Feist that originality, not 'sweat of the brow,' is the touchstone of copyright protection. The court's application of the idea-expression dichotomy and the merger doctrine to a functional work like a parts catalog provides a clear example of how commercial utility can limit copyrightability. By denying protection to the numbering system and the functional arrangement of the catalog, the decision channels such business disputes away from copyright law and toward trade secret or unfair competition law. This outcome prevents companies from using copyright to gain a monopoly over unprotectable ideas, systems, or functional methods of organizing information.

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