xml-dev - RE: What Can One Do If...?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

True, however...

They can copyright the statement of the idea 
because it is essentially only protecting the 
right to copy the statement.  If one has to 
develop in an open environment, that may be 
sufficient to establish a chain of ownership 
by which a case is built later.  It will come 
down to the judge/jury as to whether a copyright 
violation has occurred.   The code is 
of course, copyrightable.  The essential 
notion is "fixed form" which does not 
copyright the idea but the right to copy 
the form.  That is why there are separate 
copyrights for a musical composition and 
for any rendering of it (the sound recording) 
and separate revenue streams (the owner of 
the sound recording if not the owner of the 
copyright for the composition is obligated 
to pay royalties).  

For an idea, patent is the 
way to go but we've been all over 
this issue before on this list.

Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
clbullar@ingr.com
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/lensongs.ram

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: KenNorth [mailto:KenNorth@email.msn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 10:05 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: What Can One Do If...?


Michael,

In the US, someone can copyright code, but not the idea or acronym. They
can't protect the acronym unless they register it as a trademark (e.g.,
Sun's JDBC).