Judge rules against builder of Batmobile replicas

A federal judge has ruled that Batmobile replicas built by Mark Towle, of Gotham Garage, do, in fact, infringe on copyrights and trademarks held by Warner Bros. Towle's attorney, Larry Zerner, argued that US copyright law doesn't allow "useful articles" to be copyrighted. Zerner, in court documents, insisted that Warner Brothers' lawsuit claimed the entire Batmobile was protected including doors, seats and tires. The judge agreed, but ruled the law does allow copyrighting of unique design elements of useful articles.

"The implications of a ruling upholding this standard are easy to imagine," Zerner wrote.

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