Harper House, Inc. v. Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Beginning in 1982, Harper House, Inc. (plaintiff) produced and sold organizers. In 1985, Thomas Nelson, Inc. (defendant) decided to produce an organizer it later named the Time Maker. Much of Time Maker was based on Harper House’s organizers, which Thomas Nelson identified as the best organizers available at the time. Most of the blank forms included in Time Maker were edited versions of forms contained in Harper House’s organizers, with little or no change, amongst others Thomas Nelson created. The Harper House organizers and the final version of Time Maker each contained pages of instructional text. Once the model Time Maker (the Time Maker I) was printed, Thomas Nelson obtained a legal opinion that recommended it change all Time Maker pages similar to pages in Harper House’s organizers, especially those that had been copied from Harper House. Time Maker I was never sold to customers, but it was used in commercials and print advertisements to generate orders while Thomas Nelson made significant changes for a market version (the Time Maker II). Thomas Nelson abandoned the organizer business just a few months after it began distribution of Time Maker II. Harper House brought suit against Thomas Nelson for copyright infringement after a representative found Time Maker I at a trade show. After finding Harper House’s organizers copyrightable as compilations, the district court refused to give Thomas Nelson’s proposed jury instructions that portions of the organizers were not subject to protection and instead invited the jury to consider the works as a whole. The jury found for Harper House. Thomas Nelson appealed.