It should be noted that both parties requested to summon Prof. Nota to testify, but as he was informed by the plaintiff at the time of the evidentiary hearing, in view of a medical difficulty, he was unable to do so (see the transcript of the hearing of April 2, 2024, at p. 3, paras. 17-20).
- Two evidentiary hearings were held in which the plaintiff and Mrs. Shoshana Zucker, as well as the defendants, were interrogated (since the transcript of the transcript is not continuous, then for the sake of convenience, the hearing of March 19, 2024 will be referred to hereinafter: the first hearing; and the hearing of April 2, 2024, hereinafter referred to as the second hearing). The defendants waived the cross-examination of plaintiff No. 2, and also waived the cross-examination of the plaintiffs' experts.
- Before the hearing begins, I will note that I have made many attempts to bring the parties to agreements, between procedural (such as transferring to a neutral examiner or appointing an expert on behalf of the court) and substantive - but unfortunately I have not been able to do so, and this is where a decision is required.
Discussion and Decision
- After carefully examining the totality of the evidence and the arguments of the parties, I found that the main question on the basis of which the case can be decided is whether the plaintiffs' evidence, and in particular the expert opinions they submitted, substantiate the claim of copyright infringement, or perhaps, as the defendants claim, they are concerned with claims of infringement of ideas only, which are not protected.
Therefore, I will focus my decision on distinguishing between an idea that is not protected by copyright and the way it is expressed, which is protected, and applying it to the evidence and arguments that have been brought before me.
As we shall see below, despite the existence of four expert opinions that were not cross-examined, no claim or evidence was brought before me regarding the similarity between the plaintiff's research and the defendants' article on a matter that deviates from the scope of a mere idea that is not protected by copyright.