Eli Attia v. Soc'y NY Hospital

• Citation: 201 F.3d 50
• Decision Date: 01 August 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. 98-7797
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 1999) ELI ATTIA d/b/a ELI ATTIA ARCHITECTS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOCIETY OF THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL a/k/a THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL, HELLMUTH OBATA & KASSABAUM, INC., TAYLOR CLARK ARCHITECTS, INC., and HOK/TCA ASSOCIATED ARCHITECHTS, P.C., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

Page 50

201 F.3d 50 (2nd Cir. 1999)

ELI ATTIA d/b/a ELI ATTIA ARCHITECTS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOCIETY OF THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL a/k/a THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL, HELLMUTH OBATA & KASSABAUM, INC., TAYLOR CLARK ARCHITECTS, INC., and HOK/TCA ASSOCIATED ARCHITECHTS, P.C., Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 98-7797

August Term, 1998

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: Jan. 20, 1999

Decided: Dec. 27, 1999

Plaintiff Eli Attia appeals from the summary judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Jed S. Rakoff, Judge) in favor of Defendants Society of the New York Hospital, Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum, Inc., Taylor Clark Architects, Inc., and HOK/TCA Associated Architects, P.C. Attia alleged that Defendants misappropriated his drawings for the renovation of New York Hospital and falsely designated themselves as the source of his design for the renovation, thereby violating the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act. The Court of Appeals, Leval, J., holds that summary judgment was properly granted in favor of Defendants with respect to all claims.

Affirmed.

FREDERICK B. COHEN (Ross & Cohen, LLP, New York, NY), for Plaintiff-Appellant,

RICHARD P. JACOBSON (Colucci & Umans, New York, NY), for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: LEVAL, POOLER, Circuit Judges, and CURTIN, District Judge.^*.

LEVAL, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Eli Attia appeals from the summary judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Rakoff, J.) in favor of Defendants Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum, Inc., Taylor Clark Architects, Inc., HOK/TCA Associated Architects, P.C., and Society of the New York Hospital (collectively, "Defendants"). See Attia v. Society of New York Hospital, No. 95 Civ. 3021(JSR), 1998 WL 226167, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 5, 1998). The complaint alleged that Defendants copied Attia's drawings for the renovation of New York Hospital (the "Hospital" or "NYH") and falsely designated themselves as the source of his design for the renovation, thereby violating both the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act. The district court, concluding that no reasonable jury could find in Plaintiff's favor on any of his claims, dismissed them all and granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants. See Attia, 1998 WL 226167, at *3. We are convinced that the district court correctly dismissed the complaint and therefore affirm the judgment in full.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Events giving rise to this lawsuit.

For many years, officials of the Hospital considered the possibility of expanding and modernizing its facilities, which are located at the edge of the East River at 68th Street in Manhattan. The Hospital entertained various proposals on how to proceed, including some that called for use of air rights over the F.D.R. Drive along the riverbank, which the Hospital acquired from the City in 1973. By the early 1980s, however, the Hospital had apparently concluded that using the air rights would be impractical in terms of both cost and operational efficiency. As of 1987, the Hospital's preferred solution, which it designated as such in a "Certificate of Need" filed with the New York State Department of Health, involved building on or "filling-in" existing courtyards on its campus. A design embodying this solution was prepared for the Hospital by Defendant Taylor Clark Architects, Inc. ("TCA").

In 1987, Peter Kalikow, a newly appointed member of NYH's Board of Governors, retained Plaintiff to devise an alternative plan for the Hospital's modernization. After several months' work, Plaintiff developed a concept centered on a new building that would be constructed on a platform over the F.D.R. Drive. He prepared a series of architectural drawings and sketches to present this concept, which he collected in a booklet entitled "Option 1A: Building Over the F.D.R. Drive--December 1, 1987," and supplemented with a second booklet dated March 1, 1988. The Hospital was impressed by the ideas Plaintiff had developed and advised the New York State Department of Health that construction over the F.D.R. Drive was its new "preferred" approach.

The Hospital engaged Plaintiff and TCA to work together as consultants to develop these ideas and test their feasibility. However, the relationship between Plaintiff and TCA turned acrimonious, and in August 1988, the Hospital terminated the consulting arrangement under which the firms had worked together. NYH paid Plaintiff approximately $500,000 for the services he had provided over nine months' involvement with the project.

In July 1988, NYH initiated a competition to select the architect who would design and build its Major Modernization Program. Plaintiff and TCA were both invited to compete.

Plaintiff's firm entered the competition as a joint venture with two other firms, but failed to make the cut. The four candidates remaining after the cut, including a joint venture of TCA and Defendant Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum, Inc. ("HOK/TCA"), were instructed by the Hospital to submit modernization proposals tailored to a "[m]ajor new construction on air rights over the F.D.R. Drive with connections to renovated existing facilities." In February 1989, NYH declared HOK/TCA the winner. After years of work on the project, HOK/TCA prepared a set of "schematic design drawings," which the Hospital filed with the New York State Department of Health in February 1992.¹

Plaintiff asserts that in January 1993, he saw an article in the New York Times that included an illustration of HOK/TCA's plan to erect a new building over the F.D.R. Drive, and concluded that HOK/TCA had infringed his copyright. He subsequently filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York charging Defendants with copyright infringement,² violation of the Lanham Act, and unjust enrichment. The complaint alleged in main that Defendants had unlawfully copied his architectural drawings to effectuate the Hospital's Major Modernization Program, and had publicly misrepresented Plaintiff's "design, ideas and concepts" for the project as their own. In hearings before the district court, he argued specifically that HOK/TCA's schematic design drawings were "copies" of his protected materials in that they duplicated his "unique combination of design elements" as well as numerous individual design elements that he likewise characterized as "unique."³ Plaintiff sought (inter alia) a judgment declaring him to be the "Design Architect" of the Hospital's Major Modernization Program, an injunction barring Defendants from taking credit for the design of the Program, and over $40 million in damages.

B. The district court's ruling.

Upon completion of discovery in September 1997, Defendants moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the motion in May 1998. See Attia, 1998 WL 226167, at *3. "The key issue on summary judgment," the court reasoned in its Memorandum Order, "is whether there is a genuine factual dispute as to whether or not plaintiff's and defendants' plans are substantially similar." Id. at *2. In analyzing this issue, the court found a series of differences between Plaintiff's designs and Defendants', and concluded that these

differences embrace what are indisputably basic features of hospital operation and logistics. Discounting these features simply transforms plaintiff's work into an unrealized concept or idea, and hence not copyrightable. Looking instead to the different ways in which plaintiff and defendants give expression to the concept of "major new construction on air rights over the F.D.R. Drive with connections to renovated facilities," any and every reasonable fact-finder must necessarily find that plaintiff's and defendants' designs are not substantially similar.

Id. at *3. The court accordingly dismissed Plaintiff's copyright infringement claims. See id. It then held that "[b]ecause plaintiff's Lanham Act and unjust enrichment claims are predicated on defendants' alleged misappropriation of plaintiff's copyrighted works, those claims [must] also [be] dismissed." Id. Plaintiff appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Alleged infringement by Defendants' schematic design drawings.

Plaintiff first contends that Defendants' schematic design drawings misappropriated the "unique combination of design elements" inherent in his overall "design solution" to the Major Modernization Program, including "at least twenty . . . [individual] design elements" featured in his depictions.

Defendants undeniably had access to Plaintiff's drawings and thus were able to copy them. We assume, as we must for purposes of Defendants' summary judgment motion, that the similarities are attributable to copying. See, e.g., Ginsberg v. Healey Car & Truck Leasing, Inc., 189 F.3d 268, 270 (2d Cir. 1999) (on motion for summary judgment evidence is reviewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party).

The problem underlying Plaintiff's claim of copyright infringement, however is that not all copying from copyrighted material is necessarily an infringement of copyright. There are elements of a copyrighted work that are not protected even against intentional copying. It is a fundamental principle of our copyright doctrine that ideas, concepts, and processes are not protected from copying. See Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir. 1960) (Hand, J.) ("there can be no copyright in . . . 'ideas'"); Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119, 121 (2d Cir. 1930) (Hand, J.) (same); 4 Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright 13.03[B][2], at 13-58 (1998) ("Nimmer") (the principle "of nonprotectibility of concepts, processes, [and] methods . . . [has been] long recognized by the courts"). This principle is now codified in Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work . . . extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, . . . or...