So the other day I saw the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine’s old boss steals the idea of opening a store that only sells the tops of muffins (since that’s all that people eat anyway) and I got to thinking: what would happen if I were to open a store like that in real life? I know that ideas can’t be copyrighted* but would the writers of that episode who came up with the idea for for the store and business model have any legal recourse? Could I be sued for copyright infringement for using a concept taken from a larger work (the tv show) or would the concept of a muffin store be sufficiently distinct/public that even if it only sold muffin tops like in the episode that it would be considered still be considered unrelated to the tv show?
and assuming that there’s not a patent out there for the correct procedure to “pop the top.”
No, ideas cannot be copyrighted or even trademarked. Nor can anyone patent an idea that has been previously presented in public.
The individual way you create the name, look, products, and business model of the store does have rights that can be protected. But generalized ideas cannot.
If you do decide to persue this idea, you could donate the muffin bottoms to various shelters/food banks. That is, until some group protests your abuse of the less fortunate.
So if I called my store “Top of the Muffin to Ya!” which was the name in the episode, there would be a problem, but if the name was “NOTAR’S: All We Sell is Muffin Tops” there would be no problem?
Probably not. Many cute store names are references to items or events in popular culture. Titles and short phrases cannot be copyrighted, even if “Top of the Muffin to Ya!” is a part of a copyrighted program. “Top of the Muffin to Ya!” could be trademarked, but it’s unlikely that the show did this as part of the episode. (A search on the trademark database comes up with no hits, in fact.)
As long as no prior claim has been made, it would be difficult for the production company that owns the Seinfeld shows to mount a legal case. However, you would have to be careful not to use any Seinfeld trademarked property, such as images of the performers or the show’s logo.
