t the lawsuit, ruling that Paramount's copyright ownership entitled it to create "derivative works" based on the Cheers show. The judge also ruled that the two robots did not even look much like "Norm" and "Cliff." The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals twice reinstated the lawsuit, ruling most recently in 1997 that California's right-of-publicity law was not necessarily trumped by federal copyright law. And the appeals court said a jury should decide whether the robots resemble the Wendt and Ratzenberger in their character portrayals. In the appeal acted on Monday, lawyers for Paramount and Host argued that the appeals court ruling lets state law swallow federal copyright law. The case is Paramount Pictures v. Wendthttp://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/scotus/10/02/scotus.cheers.ap/ ...
