Lawsuit over WTC design is whittled down

The copyright infringement suit over the design of One World Trade Center has survived an effort to kill it, but not by much.

A recently unveiled judge’s ruling preserved three claims of a case that stems from an architectural student’s design1

  • 1. Georgia-based architect Jeehoon Park in 2017 sued four giants: architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Tishman Construction and the tower’s developers, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and The Durst Organization.

Manhattan Judge Richard Sullivan granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss many of Park’s claims but allowed three to move into discovery. Park’s lawyer, Daniel Kent, called it “a big step forward.” years before 9/11 attacks that led to the massive tower’s construction.

“Judge Sullivan recognized the obvious and substantial similarity between Mr. Park’s design and the infringing building,” he wrote in an email. “The Court could have dismissed all of Mr. Park’s claims, but did not, and the remaining claims appear to have significant value.”

The judge, however, wrote in a September order that these claims survive “only by the skin of their teeth, owing principally to the highly deferential standards on a motion to dismiss.”

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