In Equity. Suit by the Whist Club against Robert F. Foster and others for infringement of copyright on "Laws for Auction Bridge — 1926," by publication of defendant's "Foster's Simplified Auction Bridge (with the New Laws)."
Bill dismissed.
THACHER, District Judge.
In the conventional laws or rules of a game, as distinguished from the forms or modes of expression in which they may be stated, there can be no literary property susceptible of copyright. Defendant has not infringed, because he has not copied the literary composition of the plaintiff's publication, but, in language quite distinctly his own, has restated the same set of conventional precepts. This under all the authorities he was entitled to do, and neither the general acceptance of the rules as official, nor, if it were true, their rejection as officious, could have any bearing on this controversy.
Bill dismissed, with costs.