Intervest Construction, Inc. v. Canterbury Estate Homes, Inc.

Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
554 F.3d 914 (2008)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Copyright protection for an architectural work, which is treated as a compilation, is thin and extends only to the original selection, coordination, or arrangement of its unprotectable standard elements. A copyright infringement claim fails as a matter of law if the alleged copy, while sharing standard features, has significant dissimilarities in the protected expression of arranging those features.

Facts:

In 1992, Intervest Construction, Inc. ('Intervest') created a copyrighted floor plan for a house called 'The Westminster'.
The Westminster plan depicts a four-bedroom house with standard features, including a two-car garage, living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathrooms.
In 2002, Canterbury Estate Homes, Inc. ('Canterbury') created a floor plan for a house called 'The Kensington'.
The Kensington plan also depicts a four-bedroom house of a similar size with the same types of standard rooms and features as The Westminster.
The plans contained numerous differences, including the garage entrance (front vs. side), room shapes, closet locations, bathroom layouts, and kitchen features (The Kensington had an island, The Westminster did not).
Other dissimilarities included the nook design (90-degree angle vs. rounded), front entrance doors (single solid door vs. French doors), and master bedroom patio access (sliding glass door vs. French doors).

Procedural Posture:

Intervest Construction, Inc. filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Canterbury Estate Homes, Inc. in the U.S. District Court.
Canterbury filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that its floor plan was not substantially similar to Intervest's plan.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Canterbury, concluding as a matter of law that no reasonable fact-finder could find the works substantially similar.
Intervest (appellant) appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, with Canterbury as the appellee.

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Issue:

Does a house floor plan infringe on the copyright of another when both use common architectural elements, but the arrangement and coordination of those elements are significantly different?

Opinions:

Majority - Birch, Circuit Judge

No. Canterbury's floor plan does not infringe on Intervest's copyright because the protectable expressive elements of the two works are not substantially similar. Architectural works are protected as compilations, meaning copyright only covers the author's original 'selection, coordination, or arrangement' of unprotectable, standard features like rooms, doors, and windows. This protection is 'thin.' The proper legal analysis requires filtering out these non-copyrightable elements and comparing only the expressive arrangement. The district court correctly performed this analysis and identified numerous significant dissimilarities in the arrangement of every major section of the homes, from the garage orientation to the kitchen layout and bedroom configurations. Given these substantial differences in the protected expression, no reasonable jury could find the works to be substantially similar. Therefore, granting summary judgment was appropriate, as a judge is better suited than a jury to separate protectable expression from unprotectable ideas in compilation cases.

Analysis:

This decision solidifies the principle that architectural floor plans receive only 'thin' copyright protection, analogous to that of factual compilations. It establishes that for an infringement claim to succeed, the similarity must be in the specific, original arrangement of standard elements, not just in the overall layout or use of common features. The case empowers district courts to grant summary judgment in architectural copyright cases by filtering out unprotectable elements and deciding the issue of substantial similarity as a matter of law. This precedent makes it more difficult for plaintiffs to survive summary judgment based on superficial similarities between designs that use common architectural vocabulary.

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