Copyrights and Patents

Copyrights

• Copyrights apply to creative expressions when fixed in a "tangible medium."
• Facts, ideas, and concepts are not subject to copyright.
• Copyright specifically protects the right to:
  • duplication
  • derivation
  • attribution and integrity
  • distribution, display or conduct
• Copyright law has been amended many times over the years and other changes are under discussion. Note:
  • Copyright Act of 1976 (applies after 1978)
  • 1989 Berne Convention-International copyright agreement
  • 1980 Computer Software Copyright Act
  • 1997 Web Copyright Law (12/16/97) An infringement of property valued at least $1000 may be prosecuted even if the violator does not profit from the crime. Penalties range from $100,000-$250,000. For infringements against properties >$2,500 a jail term of up to 3 years may be imposed. A second offense may result in a jail term of up to 6 years.
  • The 199? Digital Copyright Clarification and Technology Education Act, S.1146 and Digital Era Copyright Enhancement Act, HR 3048 are still pending in Congress. These bills, if enacted, would assign "fair use" to qualifying electronic materials.
  • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law September, of 1998. On line service providers are under obligation to enforce copyright laws by terminating services to repeat offenders and by removing materials that infringe copyrights. They also must not benefit from infringements This act also makes it illegal to develop or sell devices or technologies that would circumvent encryption or digital watermarks intended to protect intellectual property. Exceptions are made for computer security research and cryptography.
• Under today's laws, a copyright symbol © is not required to protect a copyright (but may help prove copyright). Note that some countries don't recognize a copyright without the symbol.
• For works copyrighted after 1977, a copyright is valid for the life of the author plus 70 years. Attribution and integrity rights only apply during the author's lifetime. For anonymous works or works for hire, the period may be up to 120 years depending on the date of publication.
• Fair Use doctrine: For research and educational purposes one may copy less than 2500 words of an article or 1000 words or up to 10% (whichever is less) or a single chapter of a longer work (one time).
• Copyright infringement may be prosecuted as a civil matter or may be considered a felony under federal law. The statute of limitations is 3 years.
• See: FBI Economic Crimes Unit for statistics on product counterfeiting.
• Read contracts carefully! Your copyright may be assigned to your employer. Work you do for a company may also be considered "work for hire" in which case the copyright belongs to the company.
• Compilation Copyright-the moderator of an on-line group may hold a compilation copyright.
• Backups do not infringe copyright.
• Digital watermarks are hidden codes that can provide proof of ownership (see CACM, 41.7, 1998, 31ff). One way of doing this is to use a secret encryption key to hide the "watermark". A public key can then be used to extract the watermark.

Patents

• Patents protect inventions, processes, and algorithms
• After GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), patents apply for 20 years.
• To qualify for a patent, an invention must satisfy certain criteria:
  • It must be useful
  • It must be non-obvious (relative to "prior art" in the field)
  • It must be new, not previously invented
  • It must be original (not invented by someone else)

For more information on copyrights and patents, see these pages:
NOLO web page
US Patent and Trademark Office
Library of Congress Copyright Office
Fair Use Doctrine
Copyright Law in the Electronic Environment, by Georgia Harper
C|net Page on Copyright Law
USC Title 17, ch. 3, Duration of Copyrights
Copyright Resource Page
comp.patents

For an interesting plan to handle intellectual property in the future, see Ted Nelson's work.

Disclaimer: The notes here were not prepared by an attorney. Anyone with serious copyright or patent questions should seek appropriate legal counsel.