Eleventh Circuit Upholds Exclusion of Plaintiff's Expert Testimony in Copyright Suit Against Disney

The Eleventh Circuit published an opinion yesterday upholding the trial court's exclusion, on summary judgment, of testimony from plaintiff's experts in a copyright suit alleging that Disney stole the idea for the Epcot Center. The plaintiff was heir to someone who had painted a rendering of an international theme park in miniature, and who allegedly presented the concept (and the painting) to a Disney representative at a 1962 meeting whose occurrence Disney denies. The court upheld the trial court's exclusion of the expert reports as unhelpful, because they "focus[ed] on the concepts and ideas behind the Painting and EPCOT rather than on the expression of those concepts and ideas." See Corwin v. Walt Disney Co., No. 04-16554 (11th Cir. Nov. 2, 2006) (Edmondson, Birch, & Alarcon, JJ.).