## Facts

- Data East created and distributed the karate fighting video game *Karate Champ* in multiple versions and obtained audiovisual copyright registrations for each.
- Epyx distributed in the United States a home-computer karate game titled *World Karate Championship*, licensed from an English developer.
- Both games depicted karate matches featuring two fighters in contrasting uniforms, a referee, standard karate moves, scoring, and bonus rounds.
- The games differed in various visual details, including markedly different backgrounds and overall visual presentation.
- The district court compared still images and testimony, found the games “qualitatively identical,” held Epyx liable for copyright infringement, and issued a permanent injunction and impoundment/recall order.
- Epyx appealed, disputing substantial similarity, access, and the scope and clarity of the injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether the works were substantially similar in protectable expression, as required to prove copyright infringement.
2. Whether evidence such as still photographs and testimony was sufficient to compare the audiovisual works.
3. Whether the injunction and related relief could stand if infringement was not established.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment of infringement.
- The court held the record (still photographs depicting game sequences, plus testimony) was adequate to evaluate similarity.
- Applying the extrinsic/intrinsic framework and filtering unprotectable matter, the court found no substantial similarity in protectable expression.
- The court vacated the permanent injunction and related impoundment/recall relief.
- Because lack of substantial similarity was dispositive, the court did not reach access or injunction-vagueness arguments.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protects expression, not ideas; similarity at the idea level does not establish infringement.
- In the Ninth Circuit, substantial similarity analysis uses:
  - An extrinsic, objective inquiry into similarity of ideas; and
  - An intrinsic, subjective inquiry into similarity of protectable expression as perceived by an ordinary reasonable observer.
- Scènes à faire and other standard or indispensable elements that flow from a general idea (including common genre conventions) are not protectable.
- Under merger, when an idea can be expressed only in a limited number of ways, the expression is treated as unprotectable against others’ use of the same idea.
- Similarities dictated by technical constraints of the medium may be unprotectable when they limit expressive choices.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the shared elements between the two karate games largely reflected unprotectable genre conventions, sport-related necessities, and technical constraints rather than copied protectable expression, requiring reversal of the infringement finding and vacatur of the injunction.


Data E. USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc., 862 F.2d 204 (9th Cir. 1988)