News & Events
Appellate court hands Trump win in suit claiming theft of building design
MAY 20, 2008 | DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court decision finding real estate mogul Donald Trump and his architect did not steal the designs for his Sunny Isles Beach condominium complex from a Czech architect Paul Oravec in 1995 and 1996 developed a design for a high-rise building featuring alternating concave and convex segments and elevator cores protruding through the building’s roofline.
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Susana E. Raffanello, an attorney with Coffey Burlington in Miami who represented 'Trump and the other defendants on appeal, said no copyright protection for architectural works existed prior to 1990. But with the building boom, it has become an increasingly litigious area.
The 11th circuit "reaffirmed the tenet of copyright law, extending it definitely to architectural works, that nobody can have a copyright to a generalized idea or shape," Raffanello said.