## Facts

- Brandir International, Inc. manufactured the “RIBBON Rack,” a bicycle rack made of continuous bent metal tubing forming flowing loops.
- The rack’s designer initially created undulating wire sculptures; the bicycle rack design was developed by modifying one such sculpture for bicycle-parking use.
- To function as a rack, Brandir altered the sculpture-derived form, including adjusting loop dimensions and spacing to accommodate bicycles (including parking positions above and below) and improving stability and usability.
- The RIBBON Rack achieved commercial and design recognition, including magazine features and an industrial design award.
- The U.S. Copyright Office denied registration for the RIBBON Rack, concluding the design lacked elements capable of independent existence apart from the rack’s utilitarian aspects.
- After learning that Cascade Pacific Lumber Co. (doing business as Columbia Cascade Co.) marketed a similar rack, Brandir added copyright notices and sued for copyright infringement and trademark (trade dress) infringement.
- The district court granted summary judgment for Cascade on both claims; Brandir appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the RIBBON Rack, as a useful article, contains pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that are conceptually separable from its utilitarian aspects and therefore copyrightable under the Copyright Act.
2. Whether summary judgment was proper on Brandir’s claim that the rack’s configuration functioned as protectable trade dress under trademark law.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Cascade on the copyright claim.
- The court held the RIBBON Rack’s artistic and functional elements were not conceptually separable; the design was an uncopyrightable industrial design.
- The court reversed summary judgment on the trademark claim and remanded for further proceedings on whether the product configuration could qualify for trade-dress protection.

## Legal Principles

- A useful article’s design is protected by copyright only to the extent design features can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the article’s utilitarian aspects.
- Conceptual separability is absent when design elements reflect a merger of aesthetic and functional considerations; it exists when artistic judgment is exercised independently of functional influences.
- In evaluating separability, evidence that the final form was materially shaped by utilitarian pressures supports a finding that form and function are inseparable and therefore not within copyright’s subject matter for useful-article designs.
- Failure of copyright protection does not foreclose trademark protection; product configuration may be protectable trade dress if it satisfies trademark requirements, which may require factual development beyond summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The court held that a sculpture-derived bicycle rack design was not copyrightable because its final form resulted from intertwined aesthetic and functional choices, but it allowed Brandir to pursue a trade-dress theory on remand.


Brandir Int’l, Inc. v. Cascade Pac. Lumber Co., 834 F.2d 1142 (2d Cir. 1987)