by Christopher Harbin
In an order granting defendant Sony’s motion for summary judgment on a copyright infringement suit, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel drops this choice nugget:
Notably, some of the characters that plaintiffs allege to be similar across the stories are Greek gods like Ares, Zeus and Athena. These are stock figures not only of many contemporary stories, movies and video games, but also of the Western collective unconscious. In such a case, it is particularly important for the court to use its own “Blades of Chaos” to slice or filter out the unprotectable elements. Greek gods, dialogues among them about mortal affairs, rivalries among the gods, and mythical beasts such as the Hydra or the Nemean Lion are unprotectable elements; it is uncontroversial that they have been used widely in both ancient and modern artistic works, in the naming of astronomical bodies and spacecraft, and in other fields.
So, judicial hi-five for using “Blades of Chaos” in an opinion.
