patent for plc program

[Tom Jenkins]

You're right, of course, Jiri. I should know better than try to keep track of systems created by lawyers! Sorry about that.

Fortunately, Ron's excellent links have all the correct info.

 

[David_Emmerich]

What about this???

I followed the link that Ron provided to the Copyright Office, and found this:

"WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?
Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:

Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded)

Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents

Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes , concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)"

Doesn't that sound like it excludes things like a PLC program?
I know that I have always had to submit copies of all the programs that I write for work to be filed as Intellectual Property w/ the corporate law folks...I don't have a problem w/ that, except it's a pain to remember to do it for ever code change!!

Any comments as to the red area??

David

 

[kamenges]

David-
I think the things you have highlighted in red are things covered by patents. So copyrights would not apply to them.

For example, I come up with a whole new way to refine crude oil into gasoline that takes 1/2 the time and 1/4 the energy. I also write a book describing how the process works. The refining process would be covered by a patent. The book I write is copyrighted. Granted, the ideas in the book are covered by a patent but the copy in the book is what is copyrighted.
From what I understand, a copyright is simply a mechanism to prevent someone from making a direct copy of your 'text' (yes, I use that word loosely to mean recorded media) and thereby profit from your work. I can take the ideas in a copyrighted work and write my own work based on those ideas and not violate copyright law. However, I do need to be careful that I don't violate patent law by doing that.

Keith

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Keith is right about processes etc. being patentable. Programming can be copyritghted - an excerpt from Ron's link:

"WHAT WORKS ARE PROTECTED?
Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works include the following categories:

literary works;
musical works, including any accompanying words
dramatic works, including any accompanying music
pantomimes and choreographic works
pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
motion pictures and other audiovisual works
sound recordings
architectural works
These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most "compilations" may be registered as "literary works" ; maps and architectural plans may be registered as "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works." (Emphasis mine)

And from the same source:

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;

To prepare derivative works based upon the work ;

If you need nitty gritty details, you'll have to pay for an attorney. If you want to enforce your rights against an infringer, you'll have to go to court.

 

[testsubject]

Did not Phil Jackson (coach of the Chicago Bulls in th 90s) get the term "Threepeat" copywrited? Or was it trademarked?

If it was copywrited then that shoots down the statement that short phrased cannot be copywrited.

(trying to remember how that all went down)

Bob

 

[gbradley]

Did not Phil Jackson (coach of the Chicago Bulls in th 90s) get the term "Threepeat" copywrited?

No it was Pat Riley from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Buy the way you owe him three bucks.
Oh wait maybe so do I?

 

[testsubject]

That's right...(memory fading...need more coffee) zzzzz

 

[Tom Jenkins]

There's a lot o' worms in them cans, fellers!

My recollection is that the phrase in question was registered (or tried t' get registered) as a "trademark" which is different then a copyright.

I ben sayin' it fer years: "The technical problems are easy to solve."