Ahmad Aljindi v. United States

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
AHMAD ALJINDI,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2023-1230
______________________
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
in No. 1:21-cv-01295-SSS, Judge Stephen S. Schwartz.
______________________
Decided: April 5, 2023
______________________
AHMAD J AMALEDDIN A LJINDI, Irvine, CA, pro se.
I GOR H ELMAN, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Di-
vision, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M.
BOYNTON, ERIC P. BRUSKIN, P ATRICIA M. M CCARTHY .
______________________
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ALJINDI v. US 2
P ER CURIAM .
Dr. Ahmad Aljindi appeals the decision of the U.S.
Court of Federal Claims denying his motion for summary
judgment and granting the government’s motion to dis-
miss. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
In 2021, Dr. Aljindi filed a complaint pro se at the
Court of Federal Claims. The complaint alleged various
claims, including employment discrimination; intellectual
property theft; “negligence and tort,” Aljindi v. United
States, No. 2022-1117, 2022 WL 1464476, at *1 (Fed. Cir.
May 10, 2022) (Aljindi I); and “ongoing judicial corruption,
abuse, and torture in addition to the Government’s abuse
and torture,” id. (cleaned up). The Government moved to
dismiss Dr. Aljindi’s complaint for failure to state a claim,
and the Court of Federal Claims granted that motion.
Dr. Aljindi appealed that dismissal to this court. See
id. We affirmed the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of
most of Dr. Aljindi’s claims because that court lacked juris-
diction to consider them. Id. at *2–3. But we vacated-in-
part the trial court’s dismissal because Dr. Aljindi’s com-
plaint “mentioned copyrights law violations in the relief
section,” which could “be liberally construed as a copyright
infringement claim over which the Court of Federal Claims
would have jurisdiction.” Id. at *3 (cleaned up). Accord-
ingly, we remanded for the trial court “to consider the Gov-
ernment’s position that Dr. Aljindi’s complaint fails to
state a claim for copyright infringement.” Id.
On remand, the Government moved to dismiss
Dr. Aljindi’s copyright infringement claim for failure to
state a claim. See Aljindi v. United States, No. 21-1295C,
2022 WL 17330006, at *1 (Fed. Cl. Nov. 28, 2022)
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ALJINDI v. US 3
(Aljindi II); SAppx.1 1–4. The Government argued that
Dr. Aljindi’s complaint failed to state a copyright infringe-
ment claim because, even construed liberally, his com-
plaint only alleged generally that the Government copied
his ideas—and ideas cannot be copyrighted as a matter of
law. See Aljindi II, 2022 WL 17330006, at *1. The Court
of Federal Claims agreed and dismissed Dr. Aljindi’s copy-
right infringement claim.
Dr. Aljindi appeals. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
D ISCUSSION
We review de novo the Court of Federal Claims’ dismis-
sal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. Turping
v. United States, 913 F.3d 1060, 1064 (Fed. Cir. 2019). “A
motion to dismiss . . . for failure to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted is appropriate when the facts asserted
by the plaintiff do not entitle him to a legal remedy.” Boyle
v. United States, 200 F.3d 1369, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000). In
reviewing such a dismissal, we “accept all well-pleaded fac-
tual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences
in [the appellant’s] favor.” Id. But “regardless of whether
the plaintiff is proceeding pro se or is represented by coun-
sel, conclusory allegations or legal conclusions masquerad-
ing as factual conclusions will not suffice to prevent a
motion to dismiss.” Scott v. United States, 134 Fed. Cl.
755, 758 (2017) (quoting McZeal v. Spring Nextel Corp.,
501 F.3d 1354, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2007)).
On appeal, Dr. Aljindi argues that the Court of Federal
Claims erred in dismissing his claim for copyright
1 Citations to “SAppx.” refer to the Appendix at-
tached to the appellee’s brief.
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ALJINDI v. US 4
infringement. Appellant’s Br.2 4. Specifically, Dr. Aljindi
argues that the “Government used [his] property in ALL
formal AI Strategies published by the federal government
. . . as [he had] discovered this entire scientific field in its
entirety.” Appellant’s Br. 13. In other words, Dr. Aljindi
argues that he discovered the scientific field of “Infor-
mation Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Legacy In-
formation Systems (LIS),” and thus that the government’s
subsequent use of technologies in that field infringed upon
his copyright. Complaint at 2, Aljindi v. United States,
No. 1:21-cv-01295-SSS (Fed. Cl.) (Complaint); see also Ap-
pellant’s Br. 10 (“[H]ow did these federal agencies . . . know
about the relationship between AI, Information Security,
and LIS without reading and taking my property and
building on its formal scientific findings!”).3
As the Court of Federal Claims explained, the protec-
tions of copyright do not “extend to any idea, procedure,
process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or
discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described,
2 Because Dr. Aljindi’s opening brief on appeal in-
cludes an attachment, we use the pagination provided in
the header of his brief.
3 Dr. Aljindi also argues that the trial court erred by
dismissing his “Fifth Amendment Taking Claim.” Appel-
lant’s Br. 4. In Aljindi I, however, we affirmed that court’s
dismissal of this claim and remanded only for considera-
tion of his copyright infringement claim. 2022 WL
1464476, at *2–3; see also Aljindi v. United States, 143
S. Ct. 436 (2022) (Mem.) (denying Dr. Aljindi’s petition for
a writ of certiorari). Dr. Aljindi thus cannot re-raise this
issue on appeal from that remand. See, e.g., Arizona v. Cal-
ifornia, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983) (“[W]hen a court decides
upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern
the same issues in subsequent stages of the same case.”).
Accordingly, we do not consider this issue further.
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ALJINDI v. US 5
explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”
17 U.S.C. § 102(b); see Aljindi II, 2022 WL 17330006, at *2.
An individual can own a copyright on a literary form of
their work, but not on “the facts and ideas” contained in
that work. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation En-
ters., 471 U.S. 539, 547 (1985). Put simply, “[c]opyright
protection does not extend to ideas expressed in a copy-
righted work.” Boyle v. United States, 200 F.3d 1369, 1373
(Fed. Cir. 2000).
Here, Dr. Aljindi’s complaint identifies the intellectual
property allegedly infringed by the government as his “sci-
entific work about Information Security, Artificial Intelli-
gence (AI), and Legacy Information Systems (LIS).”
Complaint at 2. On appeal, as he did before the Court of
Federal Claims, Dr. Aljindi references his doctoral disser-
tation. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. 10. Dr. Aljindi clarifies in
his briefing, however, that his copyright claim is not
founded on any alleged infringement of the copyrightable
aspects of his dissertation; rather, he explains that “[t]he
scientific intellectual property” at issue is “the discovery of
the entire Information Security, AI, and LIS scientific field
in its entirety and establishing this scientific field from
scratch.” Appellant’s Br. 9; see also id. at 10 (Dr. Aljindi
arguing that “[e]verything is based on [his] scientific re-
search and [his] own property”); id. at 13 (Dr. Aljindi argu-
ing that the “Government used [his] property in ALL
formal AI Strategies published by the federal govern-
ment.”). Dr. Aljindi does not identify any specific expres-
sion of these ideas and concepts that the government
allegedly copied; instead, he repeatedly contends generally
that “everything built on top of [his] property is [his] prop-
erty.” Id. at 10.
Accordingly, even giving Dr. Aljindi’s pleadings the le-
niency afforded to pro se plaintiffs, Ledford v. United
States, 297 F.3d 1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2002), Dr. Aljindi
has alleged only that the government infringed certain of
his “idea[s], . . . concept[s], principle[s], or discover[ies],”
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ALJINDI v. US 6
17 U.S.C. § 102(b), which by definition cannot be copy-
righted. The Court of Federal Claims thus did not err in
dismissing Dr. Aljindi’s copyright infringement claim.
We have considered each of Dr. Aljindi’s remaining ar-
guments and find them unpersuasive.
CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Court of Federal
Claims’ dismissal of Dr. Aljindi’s complaint.
AFFIRMED
COSTS
No costs.
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