Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we take a look at an appeal to the Supreme Court regarding whether the Batmobile is protectable by copyright, and the interesting bigger legal question this case poses.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp62
A few months ago, we noted that when Warner Bros. lost copyright in the Happy Birthday song, a small victory was won the same week when the company's subsidiary DC Comics won a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a copyright in the Batmobile. DC Comics is fighting in court against a mechanic who was making and selling Bamtobile replicas for customers. That decision has now been appealed this week to the Supreme Court to review several questions regarding copyright law.
The Supreme Court grants certiorari in only a few cases a year despite receiving hundreds of appeal requests like this one, so the first question is whether the Court will take this case up for review. Some factors bend against such review, including there being no split among the different Circuit Court of Appeals that has been shown by the mechanic. The mechanic has argued that automobiles have been expressly excluded from what can be covered by copyright, but he cannot point to any decisions by other federal court supporting this. When there's no split or inconsistent application of law, the Supreme Court hesitates to get involved unless there's an important legal question posed for clarification or resolution by the highest court in the land.
Although not listed as one of the three questions directly posed to the Supreme Court for the appeal, the mechanic's attorneys implied that using copyright to protect automobile designs would unfairly deny what should be covered by design patents for only 14 years from ever falling into the public domain. Remember that copyrights last 95 years for companies and life plus 70 years for individuals. So the appeal document argues that the Ninth Circuit decision upholding copyright in the Batmobile would also result in Ford and other car companies covering their car designs for 95 years instead of the 14 years they are entitled to under patent law.
That's really part of a larger question that's started to gain more attention recently in IP law as design patents with limited terms overlap in places with trade dress protection or copyright protection, both of which provide longer or potentially perpetual protection. Should innovators and creators be limited to only one bite at the intellectual property apple, or can protection be extended by using the different types of IP protection? There's interesting policy arguments supporting both sides, and it's precisely the type of broad-sweeping important question that could lure the Supreme Court to take the case and opine on the bigger questions facing this part of the law.
Plus, there's the entertainment value of taking on a case about fancy movie cars like the Batmobile, as the appeal document includes a ton of pictures of different iterations of this vehicle. The Court decided the Spiderman web shooter case last term and had a bit of fun while doing it, so maybe it is DC's turn to see some legal spotlight for similar reasons.
Bottom Line: Even though the odds are strongly against the Supreme Court debating the copyright merits of the Batmobile, there's a very interesting big legal question to answer if they do take on the challenge. Let's hope Spiderman gets replaced with Batman on this year's Supreme Court docket.
------------
Feedback can be sent to me with future segment suggestions on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy.
No comments:
Post a Comment