A federal judge ruled that similar themes, characters and plot lines weren't enough to qualify as copyright infringement.

Judge nixes story of woe between two romance authors

March 4, 2013 4:23 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

A Connecticut judge has ruled that the similarities between two romance novels did not violate either of the authors' intellectual property rights.

In April 2012, April Rucker, whose novel "How to Love a Billionaire" remains unfinished, sued publishing company Harlequin Enterpises for plagiarizing her novel after she submitted the synopsis and first chapter to multiple writing competitions, reported Courthouse News. Rucker pointed to the Romantic Writers of America-sponsored 2010 Spring Into Romance Contest as the instance where the company got ahold of her intellectual property, claiming that authors and editors from the company were there and stole her ideas.

The book in question – "The Proud Wife" – was released one year after the contest, at which point, Rucker purchased the book, only to find what she believed to be glaring plagiarism. According to Rucker's suit, the book included over 40 instances of direct copyright infringement. Harlequin denied the claims, saying that there was no evidence that any ideas were stolen at the contest, in which "How to Love a Billionaire" was a finalist, the news source reported.

On Friday, a judge agreed with Harlequin and threw the case out of court. According to Courthouse News, the judge released an 18-page opinion that announced: "This court does not resolve whether Harlequin accessed Rucker's work because, as explained below, there is no actionable similarity between the works and therefore no infringement."

The judge went on to explain that the similarities between the novels were limited basic traits of the book, including characters and plot lines that are found in many other romance novels. However, such crossover such familiar themes of the romance genre were not direct infringements of the "expression" that the Copyright Act is meant to protect, the judge ruled.

Local companies looking to protect their intellectual property should seek out a Phoenix small business attorney in order to avoid similar incidents.

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