Huang's master's thesis and a visual presentation of the thesis. The defendants, Taflove and Chang, denied many of these facts, and denied that Chang had copied from Ho or Huang. The case On July 31, 2007, Ho and Huang filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. They alleged copyright infringement and state law claims of false designation of origin, unfair competition, conversion, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets involving six documents published by the defendants. Copyright infringement claims Ho and Huang, the plaintiffs, claimed that the use of the mathematical models by Taflove and Chang, the defendants, infringed on the copyrights they held for Huang’s thesis, Ho's notebooks, Huang's figures and a 2002 presentation. Their main argument was that the defendants had copied an "expression of complicated physical phenomenon" consisting of the model, derivation of equations and two figures and therefore infringed on their copyrights. The defendants' counter argument states that the model and equations are ineligible for copyright protections under the merger doctrine because there are so few different ways to express a mathematical concept. The Copyright Act states that "in no case does copyright protection extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery regardless of the form in which it is described, explained illustrated or embodied in such work" 17 U.S.C. 102(b). The plaintiffs argued that their model was not a fact and more like the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, claiming that the model was only an expression of reality like Mickey is to a mouse. However, under the copyright act and merger doctrine the plaintiffs failed to show legitimate infringement. The district court granted summary judgement in favor of the defendants, asserting that the model was indeed an idea and therefore not eligible for copyright protection. The model is not like Mickey Mouse because it is intended to describe reality in the form of an idea but is not an expression in and of itself. State law claims False designation and unfair competition The plaintiffs claimed that the publication of the model by the defendants was false designation of origin under the Lanham Act, and unfair competition because they failed to properly give credit to the plaintiffs and used it to further their own careers. The defendants argued that Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. nullifies the argument. Judge Murphy agreed and asserted that under Dastar