Читать книгу Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs - Howard B. Rockman - Страница 22

A copyright is a form of intellectual property that protects the expression of authorship or artistic rendition of the author or creator, but does not protect the idea or concept upon which the expression is based. A concept for doing something cannot be protected by copyright, but the fixation, or expression of that concept, can be protected. For example, the concept of writing a book about tornado hunters is not protectable. However, a book or film about tornado hunters is a “fixation” of the author’s expression, and the expression, but not the concept, is protectable under the copyright statutes.

Copyright protection is normally easier and less expensive to obtain than either patent or trademark protection. Under existing law, the creator of a copyrightable work obtains an intangible copyright in the work immediately upon the fixation of the work in a tangible medium of expression. To obtain a U.S. registration of that copyright, which provides tangible evidence of the existence of the copyright, an application setting forth, among other things, the author’s name, the identity of the work to be protected, and its date of creation are submitted on an appropriate form to the Register of Copyrights, along with a deposit sample of the work. The Register of Copyrights works under the aegis of the U.S. Library of Congress. The application is subjected to an examination procedure, which is much quicker than the examination of patent or trademark applications, because there is no examination for novelty or likelihood of confusion as compared to existing copyrighted works. The copyright application must indicate which portions of the work are original and which are not. This permits the public to ascertain which portions are protected and which remain in the public domain. Copyrights are used to protect books, films, videos, works of art, sculptures, and, more recently, choreography and software.

It is possible to overlap protection between the copyright and patent laws. For example, a novel, useful and non‐obvious computer program may be protectable under both patent laws and the copyright laws. The expression of an algorithm or formula can be protected as a literary work under the copyright law. In addition, a novel method for controlling a machine by use of an algorithm may qualify for patent protection.