## Facts

- Norris Industries, Inc. designed automobile wheel covers whose surface pattern simulated the look of a radial, wire-spoked wheel.
- In 1975, Norris sought copyright registration for its first wheel-cover design; the Copyright Office initially rejected the applications on the ground that the design was a utilitarian article without separable copyrightable features.
- The Copyright Office later issued a registration for the first design, stating it was doing so under its practice of resolving doubtful cases in favor of registration.
- In 1977, Norris created a second wheel-cover design and submitted additional applications. After the D.C. Circuit reversed the district court decision in *Esquire, Inc. v. Ringer*, the Copyright Office refused these later applications, treating the wheel cover as a utilitarian article lacking separable copyrightable aspects.
- Norris sued International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT) in the Northern District of Florida, alleging copyright infringement (and also asserting patent claims not central to the appeal).
- Under 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), the Register of Copyrights (David L. Ladd) joined as a defendant for the limited purpose of defending the Office’s refusal to register and contesting copyrightability.
- ITT and the Register moved for partial summary judgment on the copyright counts. The district court granted the motion and declared both the registered and unregistered wheel-cover designs invalid under copyright law as a matter of law.
- Norris appealed the summary judgment ruling to the Eleventh Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether the wire-spoked automobile wheel covers are “useful articles” under the Copyright Act so that their overall designs are not protected as pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works.
2. If the wheel covers are useful articles, whether any features of the designs can be identified separately from, and can exist independently of, the covers’ utilitarian aspects so as to be copyrightable.
3. Whether the district court properly resolved copyrightability on partial summary judgment where the objects’ function and appearance were not in dispute.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of partial summary judgment for ITT and the Register.
- The court held the wheel covers are useful articles (automobile parts designed to cover wheels) rather than copyrightable sculptural works.
- The court held the wire-spoke appearance and overall configuration Norris claimed as protectable could not be separated from the wheel cover’s utilitarian form in a way that would leave an independent work of authorship eligible for copyright.
- Because the designs lacked separable copyrightable features, the court agreed that Norris’s registered and unregistered claims were invalid as a matter of law and could not support infringement liability.
- Summary judgment was appropriate because the central dispute was legal—whether the designs met the statutory limits on protection for useful articles—based on undisputed characteristics of the wheel covers.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protection for “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works” does not extend to the utilitarian aspects of a “useful article.” 17 U.S.C. § 101.
- A useful article may receive copyright protection only for features that (1) can be identified separately from the utilitarian aspects and (2) are capable of existing independently of those utilitarian aspects. 17 U.S.C. § 101 (definition of “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works” and “useful article”).
- The fact that an object is attractive or designed with an ornamental look does not, by itself, make the object copyrightable when the claimed design is bound up with the article’s function as a product.
- Registration does not guarantee that a work is copyrightable; a court may declare a registered claim invalid when the work falls outside the statute’s subject matter or fails the separability requirement.
- When the material facts about the article’s form and function are not disputed, copyrightability may be decided as a question of law on summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that Norris’s wire-spoked wheel covers are useful articles and that the spoke-like pattern and overall design could not be separated from the covers’ functional form in a way that would yield an independent copyrightable work; it therefore affirmed summary judgment declaring Norris’s registered and unregistered claims invalid and rejecting the copyright infringement counts.


Norris Industries, Inc. v. International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., 696 F.2d 918 (1983)