preview

Questions On New Leaf Custom Homes

Better Essays
Open Document

I write to follow up our recent conversation regarding New Leaf Custom Homes’ (“New Leaf’s”) infringement of Eddie Maestri’s copyright in the architectural design of the Maestri – Moore Residence. In response to your inquiry, Mr. Maestri is the owner of the United States Copyright, Registration Number VAU001139864, issued April 24, 2013. Registration includes first story and second story floor plans, as well as two elevations, the totality of which provide full disclosure of the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements of the Maestri – Moore Residence. While the Maestri – Moore Residence may serve as a novel archetype from which New Leaf seeks to illegally derive the Fox Residence, there is clearly …show more content…

See 17 U.S.C. §410(c). Second, the evidence will show that both your client and the Foxes themselves directly reached out to inquire about specific and unique details of the Maestri – Moore Residence, a house located a mere block from the site of the future Fox Residence. Third, as even your letter appears to concede, the Fox residence most closely resembles the Maestri – Moore Residence in its externally visible elements and overall composition; the minor deviations are reserved for those internal spots that New Leaf could not quite so easily copy. These facts would have been different if the Maestri – Moore Residence were less distinctive or if had only trivially departed from the standard modern farmhouse form. In the Fifth Circuit, courts will look to proof of your client’ access to my client’s design, then focus on the whether there is substantial similarity between the residences by reference to the eyeball test of the average juror, not the academic distinctions of experts. See Positive Black Talk, Inc. v. Cash Money Records, Inc., 394 F.3d 357, 367–68 (5th Cir. 2004); Peel & Co. v. Rug Mkt., 238 F.3d 391, 395 (5th Cir. 2001); Computer Mgmt. Assistance Co. v. Robert F. DeCastro, Inc., 220 F.3d 396 (5th Cir. 2000). The bottom line remains that the residences were, both before and

Get Access
Related
Get Access