Copyright case: RJ Control Consultants Inc. v. Multiject LLC, USA

Rotary turntable control system’s technical drawings were not copyrightable, but underlying software source code could be, depending on full development of factual record.

Whether the software source code for a rotary turntable control system was copyrightable raised a question of fact that required full development of a factual record, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held. The appellate court reversed and remanded a district court’s grant of summary judgment, and granted the software copyright owner’s request to compel discovery on this issue. The Sixth Circuit did affirm the lower court’s ruling that infringement claims related to the copying of the technical drawings for the control system were not protected by the Copyright Act but were, instead, subject only to patent law (RJ Control Consultants, Inc. v. Multiject, LLC, November 23, 2020, Donald, B.).

Case date: 23 November 2020

Case number: No. 20-1009

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.