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The Copyright Act preempted claims alleging conversion and unjust enrichment over use of the plaintiff's concepts for fashion design and a television show, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held. Stewart v. World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. (WWE), O3 CV 2468 (RLC). But the court concluded that the plaintiff could proceed with his claims for misappropriation, breach of confidential relationship and breach of implied contract. Fashion designer Calvin Stewart alleged that he had a series of discussions with the defendants regarding his ideas for new lingerie fashions bearing the WWE logo as well as his concept for a fashion video. Stewart filed suit after the defendants ended the discussions, aired the cable show “WWE Divas Lingerie” and allegedly began using the lingerie concepts in their New York City restaurant. In line with the established view in the Second Circuit, the federal appellate jurisdiction within which the Southern District resides, the Manhattan federal district court determined that the unjust enrichment claim wasn't qualitatively different from a copyright infringement claim because it alleged that the defendants had gained from use of Stewart's materials without his permission. The district court found the same for Stewart's conversion claim.

The court then found that Stewart properly alleged a non-preempted breach of confidential relationship claim, noting: “We believe that the repeated in-person contacts between plaintiff and defendant and the apparent cooperative effort between them to develop the ideas presented sufficiently differentiate [from a copyright infringement claim] the present case before the court for motion to dismiss purposes.” The court found that extra elements differentiated Stewart's misappropriation claim by sufficiently alleging a confidential relationship and that the ideas he presented were novel and concrete.