Mist-On Systems Inc. sued Gilley’s European Tan Spa in a
Wisconsin court, claiming that its FAQs page had been cut and
pasted - and then tweaked. Mist-On’s page listed 19 FAQs. Gilley’s
listed 16 very similar FAQs.
District Court Judge Barbara Crabb wrote:
“...a business cannot copyright a Frequently
Asked Questions page as such or copyright words or phrases commonly
used to assemble any Frequently Asked Questions page.”
She concluded that there were sufficient differences for the
“reasonable person” to distinguish the pages and conclude that
there was no unlawful copying. She continued:
“The similarities between the two pages do
not arise from protected expression. Rather, they arise from the
parties’ use of a common format to address topics common to the
subject of tanning booths.”
In coming to this conclusion, Judge Crabb noted that the
“sequence, the wording and the number of the questions are
different from each other”.
