Courts Must Look to Each Infringement for Copyright Statute of Limitations

Determining whether a copyright cause of action falls within the three-year statute of limitations requires looking to see if any infringement occurred during the three years prior to the filing date of the case, the Seventh Circuit says.

Chicago Building Design, P.C. (CBD) designed the interior of Plan B, an upscale restaurant, which Mongolian House, Inc. sought to renovate.  CBD filed the plan with the City of Chicago to obtain a “repair and replace” permit, which was granted, and that work was completed in 2007.

Later, Mongolian House hired another architect, who placed his name on the blueprints, which were filed with the City of Chicago in 2008 to obtain a “full” building permit for the same facility.  Sometime in 2008, a CDB employee visited the City’s offices and saw the blueprints submitted that year for Plan B’s full building permit.  The plans appeared to be copies of the CDB’s design but were labeled with the other architect’s name.  The City refused to provide a copy of the blueprints to CBD.  It was not until May 2009 that CBD learned that the blueprints were its blueprints with the new architect’s name.

CBD filed a copyright lawsuit in February 2012.  The complaint alleged that the blueprints were distributed to building inspectors during inspections in July 2009 and periodically thereafter through January 2012.  The trial court found that the claim was barred because CBD was under “inquiry notice” as of 2008 and therefore the claim occurred outside the three-year statute of limitations.

The appellate court reversed the trial court’s dismissal.  “The concept of inquiry notice may help to identify the time at which a reasonable plaintiff can be expected to start investigating a possible violation of his rights, but it does not itself trigger the statute of limitations.  Accordingly, the district court should not have used inquiry notice as the starting date for the statute of limitations,” the Seventh Circuit found.

“[T]he right question to ask in copyright cases is whether the complaint contains allegations of infringing acts that occurred within the three-year look-back period from the date on which the suit was filed.  Here, the answer to that question is plainly ‘yes.’”

“The complaint alleges that Golden, Perres, and Wilson distributed the infringing blueprints to city building inspectors at periodic inspections from July 2009 through January 2012, in violation of CBD’s rights under § 106(3).  These acts occurred within the three-year look-back period from the date of suit and are at least potentially actionable,” the court stated.

As to whether distributing the blueprints to the inspectors is a violation of the exclusive right to distribute a work “to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending,” the appellate court said, is an issue to be developed by the trial court.

Chicago Building Design, P.C. v Mongolian House, Inc., Seventh Cir. No. 12-3037, issued October 23, 2014.