| Copyright and the Protection of Ideas and Facts |
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| Copyright law protects the expression of ideas and facts, not the ideas and facts themselves. Copyright protects only fixed, original, and creative expression, not the ideas or facts upon which the expression is based. Works that have not been fixed to a tangible medium are just ideas. Ideas are fair game for everyone to express in their own words. Allowing authors to monopolize their ideas would defeat the underlying purpose of copyright law, which is to encourage people to create new work. One may express ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in the description, but that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in the written or artistic work. This exclusion helps maintain the distinction between copyright protection and patent law. Ideas and inventions are the subject matter for patents, while the expression of ideas is governed by copyright law. If copyright were extended to protect ideas, principles, and devices, then it would be possible to circumvent the rigorous prerequisites of patent law and secure protection for an invention merely by describing the invention in a copyrightable work. More... |
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| Patent Law |
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| One of the basic requirements for obtaining a patent is that the invention must be new. If the same invention has been patented before, or even written about or used for a certain amount of time before a patent is applied for, it will not be eligible for a patent More... |
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| Copyright Joint Authorship and Ownership |
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| According to the Copyright Act, the authors of a joint work jointly own the copyright in the work they create. A joint work is defined in the Copyright Act as "a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole." Courts have interpreted this to mean that all putative joint authors must intend to make a joint work at the time of the creation of that work. If joint authorship exists, the authors of the "joint work" will be recognized as the co-owners of the copyright in that work. The contributions to a joint work do not need to be equal in quality or quantity, they only need to be copyrightable contributions and the parties must agree that the work is a joint work. More... |
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| Patent Law |
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| It has been held by the United States Supreme Court that laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas may not be the subject of a patent. The reasoning behind this rule is that laws of nature and abstract ideas are not created; rather, they exist independent of any person and are merely described by the person that discovers them. Included in the types of abstract ideas for which patents may not be obtained are mathematical formulae and algorithms, which are sets of steps or procedures designed to solve a problem.
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| Patent Law: Written Description |
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| Under the Patent Act's application requirements, the manner and process of making and using the invention to be patented must be described in sufficiently full, clear, concise, and exact terms to enable a person of ordinary skill in the field in which the invention is classified (the "art") to make and use the invention. This requirement ensures that the invention is described and communicated to the public in a meaningful way so that the invention contributes to public knowledge; accordingly, a patent claim may be ruled invalid if it is not supported by an enabling description. More... |
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