## Facts

- Senta Maria Runge authored and copyrighted *Face Lifting by Exercise* (1961), describing isometric facial exercises intended to preserve a youthful appearance.
- Runge’s work was based on her study of anatomy and physical therapy and on publicly available articles.
- In 1962, Joyce Lee worked in Runge’s beauty salon and was alleged to have learned of Runge’s exercises and book during that time.
- Lee later published *The Joyce Lee Method of Scientific Facial Exercises* (1965).
- Runge sued Lee for copyright infringement, alleging Lee’s book used a system of facial exercises that was strikingly similar to Runge’s.
- A jury returned a verdict for Runge, finding infringement; judgment was entered against Lee.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment, rejecting Lee’s argument that Runge’s work lacked the “novelty” required for constitutional copyrightability.
- The Supreme Court denied certiorari; Justice Douglas dissented from the denial, arguing the constitutional standard for copyrightability warranted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the constitutional or statutory threshold for copyright protection requires patent-like “novelty,” or only “originality.”
2. Whether a work that compiles and organizes preexisting public-domain information can satisfy the originality requirement.
3. Whether the Supreme Court should review the constitutional limits of Congress’s copyright power when protection is granted to works alleged to be largely derivative of prior public knowledge.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court denied certiorari, leaving the Ninth Circuit’s judgment in place without a merits ruling.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the verdict for Runge, holding that “novelty” is a patent standard and not required for copyrights.
- The Ninth Circuit applied a modest originality standard and concluded Runge’s book satisfied it.
- Justice Douglas dissented from denial of certiorari, contending the constitutional standard of copyrightability had not been decided by the Court and may have been misapplied below.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protection requires “originality,” not patent-style “novelty.”
- Originality is a low threshold: the author must contribute something created through the author’s own skill, labor, and judgment that is “recognizably” the author’s, even if based on prior treatments.
- A work may be copyrightable even if it largely draws from public-domain sources, so long as the author’s expressive selection, arrangement, or presentation is sufficiently original.
- Denial of certiorari does not establish Supreme Court precedent on the merits; it leaves the lower-court judgment intact.
- A dissent from denial of certiorari may identify unresolved constitutional questions but does not create binding law.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari left standing a Ninth Circuit decision reaffirming that copyrightability turns on modest originality rather than novelty, while Justice Douglas’s dissent highlighted an unresolved constitutional debate over whether minimal originality should suffice under the Copyright Clause.


Lee v. Runge, 404 U.S. 887 (1971)