Merger doctrine (copyright law)

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In United States copyright law, the merger doctrine holds that if an idea and the way to express it are so intricately tied that the ways of expression have little possible variation, there will not be copyright infringement, lest the copyright prevent others from expressing the same idea. The overall principle is that of the idea-expression divide, which is that one can hold a copyright in an expression, but not in an idea.

One case involving this was Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits Inc.^[1], in which the court ruled that the whole vodka bottle in that case was driven by function, was not subject to copyright, and could not be protected by copyright law for that reason. While the label might have been protected by copyright, it was ruled to be incidental to the use and not significant.