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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke


Herbert Rosenthal Jewelry Corp. v. Kalpakian, 446 F. 2d 738 (9th Cir 1971)

Plaintiff and defendants are engaged in the design, manufacture, and sale of fine jewelry. Rosenthal charged Kalpakian with infringing plaintiff's copyright registration of a pin in the shape of a bee formed of gold encrusted with jewels. A consent decree was entered, reciting that the parties had agreed to a settlement of the action and entry of the decree. It provided that plaintiff's copyright of the jeweled bee was "good and valid in law," that defendants had manufactured a jeweled bee "alleged to be similar," and that defendants were enjoined from infringing plaintiff's copyright and from manufacturing or selling copies of plaintiff's jeweled bee pin.

The district court, after an evidentiary hearing, found that while defendants had manufactured and sold a line of jeweled bee pins, they designed their pins themselves after a study of bees in nature and in published works and did not copy plaintiff's copyrighted bee. The court further found that defendants' jeweled bees were "not substantially similar" to plaintiff's bees, except that both "do look like bees." The court concluded that defendants had neither infringed plaintiff's copyright nor violated the consent decree, and entered a judgment order denying plaintiff's motion.

The court of appeals rejected Rosenthal's understanding that its copyright would effectively prevent others from engaging in the business of manufacturing and selling jeweled bees. The court went into a lengthly discussion of copyright "ideas" and copyright "expression", ideas not being copyrightable.

The court of appeals upheld the lower court ruling.

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