Designworks Homes, Inc. and its sole shareholder Charles Lawrence James (collectively, “Designworks”) sued two real estate agents in Western District of Missouri for copyright infringement for including floorplans of its homes in resale listings. Over the years, Mr. James had built six homes based on his designs. For a listing of one of those homes for resale, a real estate agent prepared a floor plan that depicted a top-down, two-dimensional outline of each of the home's floors and rooms, labeled with names and rough dimensions for each space. A few years later, a different agent listed for sale another home designed by Mr. James which included a similar floor plan in the listing. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the real estate agents, holding that using home designs to create and share floor plans to facilitate resale of existing homes based on the designs constituted fair use. Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., 126 F.4th 589 (8th Cir. 2025), cert. denied, Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., No. 25-235, 2025 WL 2949582 (U.S. Oct. 20, 2025). The Court found that the copying was reasonable in relation to the purpose of facilitating home resales. Furthermore, while “nontrivial” elements of the designs were copied, the floor plans did not include the detail necessary to replicate and serve as substitutes for the designs. 

The Eighth Circuit later affirmed the district court's award of attorneys' fees and costs, finding that the district court's explanation that “unnecessarily overbroad infringement claims” do not serve the purpose of the Copyright Act and Designworks's “litigation strategy gives rise to circumstances suggesting a need for deterrence,” did not ignore the Copyright Act's purpose. Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., Nos. 24-3181 and 24-3182 (8th Cir. April 2, 2026). Citing Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), the Court noted that 17 U.S.C. § 505 confers broad discretion on the district courts to award attorney's fees based on the circumstances of a case. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the award of $153,302.50 in attorney's fees to one of the real estate agent defendants and $82,626.75 in attorney's fees to the other real estate defendant. 

The Court also noted that taxation of research and retrieval costs to obtain deposit materials from the United States Copyright Office were taxable as exemplification under 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4) or, in the alternative, recoverable as a discretionary component of attorney's fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505. See, e.g., Hernandez v. Bridgestone Americas
Tire Operations, LLC, 831 F.3d 940, 950 (8th Cir. 2016) (district courts have discretion to award research costs as a component of attorney's fees under a feeshifting statute); InvesSys, Inc. v. McGraw-Hill Cos., Ltd., 369 F.3d 16, 22-23 (1st Cir. 2004) (legal research costs paid to third parties are recoverable as a component of attorney's fees under § 505).