Designworks filed suit alleging that defendants violated its copyright in the registered design of a two-story home. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, concluding that defendants’ home design was not a copy of the original Designworks home.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the district court did not err in granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment because the works were so dissimilar that reasonable minds could not differ as to the absence of substantial similarity in expression in the designs. The court explained that there was no direct evidence of copyright infringement and there was no evidence of a substantial similarity of expression in the designs. In this case, the district court’s order emphasized how unreasonable Designworks’ litigating position had been, from completely failing to address the “significant objective differences” between the designs to producing nothing more than speculative evidence that anyone associated with defendants had accessed the Designworks house. The court also affirmed the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees and costs to defendants. View “Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Thomson Sailors Homes, LLC” on Justia Law