Design Basics, LLC v. Lexington Homes, Inc.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-home builder’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s action alleging that defendant infringed on its copyright to its home designs for market-ready, modest single-family homes. Record showed existence of many aesthetic distinctions, as well as differences in dimensions and spatial relationships between parties’ homes that precluded finding that defendant’s plans were substantially similar to plaintiff’s home plans, and plaintiff failed to offer any competent evidence, outside of bare conclusory declaration from its own draftsman, that defendant’s plans were copies of plaintiff’s plans. Moreover, much of contents of house plans at issue was dictated by functional requirements and industry norms that could not be protected under copyright law. Also, Dist. Ct. could properly find that plaintiff had failed to present evidence that defendant had access to plaintiff’s copyrighted house plans, even though plaintiff argued that mere presence of its accessible website that contained said plans constituted sufficient proof of defendant’s access to said plans.