{"id":6498,"date":"2014-02-06T22:18:27","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T04:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=6498"},"modified":"2014-02-07T00:04:33","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T06:04:33","slug":"thought-for-the-day-no-reductionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=6498","title":{"rendered":"Thought for the day — No Reductionism"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past few years, I have been writing a chapter for the Colorado Bar Association’s “Annual Survey” publication. \u00a0Each year we highlight the top legal developments from the previous year — my chapter focuses on intellectual property developments. \u00a0As I was finishing my write-up for this year’s Annual Survey, I found myself appreciating the Tenth Circuit’s insight into copyright law. \u00a0I hope the Supreme Court considers the parallels between copyright law and patent law when it decides Alice v. CLS<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Namely, the Tenth Circuit wrote in\u00a0ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT LTD., INC. v. Warrick<\/em>, 717 F.3d 1112 (10th Cir. 2013):<\/span><\/p>\n

Warrick’s view misses the forest for the trees. Any copyrightable work can be sliced into elements unworthy of copyright protection.<\/span> <\/span>See <\/em>CMM Cable Rep.,<\/em> 97 F.3d at 1514<\/a>. Books could be reduced to a collection of non-copyrightable words. Music could be distilled into a series of non-copyrightable rhythmic tones. A painting could be viewed as a composition of unprotectable colors. Warrick’s impulse to unpack Lippitt’s diagram into ever-smaller and less-protectable elements is understandable, as copyright jurisprudence tends toward dissection.<\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, a limiting principle constrains this reductionism. We must focus on whether Lippitt has “selected, coordinated, and arranged” the elements of her diagram in an original way.\u00a0Feist Publ’ns,<\/em> 499 U.S. at 358, 111 S.Ct. 1282<\/a>;\u00a0Knitwaves, Inc. v. Lollytogs Ltd.,<\/em> 71 F.3d 996, 1004 (2d Cir.1995)<\/a>;\u00a0see also <\/em>Feist Publ’ns,<\/em> 499 U.S. at 349, 111 S.Ct. 1282<\/a> (“[I]f the selection and arrangement are original, these elements of the work are eligible for copyright protection.”).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past few years, I have been writing a chapter for the Colorado Bar Association’s “Annual Survey” publication. \u00a0Each year we highlight the top legal developments from the previous year — my chapter focuses on intellectual property developments. \u00a0As I was finishing my write-up for this year’s Annual Survey, I found myself appreciating the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6502,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions\/6502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}