| 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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| Color as Trademark Subject Matter |
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| Under the Lanham Act "any word, name, symbol or device" may be eligible for trademark registration. Courts have differed as to whether or not the law recognizes the use of color alone as a trademark because the Lanham Act does not specifically mention color. For many years the general rule had been that color would not be given trademark significance because of the limited number of colors available, unless the color was employed as an element of a distinctive design.More... |
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| Patent Law and Collateral Estoppel |
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| In a patent case, under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case. Once a patent has been declared invalid via judicial inquiry, a collateral estoppel barrier is created against further litigation involving the patent, unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that he or she did not have a full and fair chance to litigate the validity of the patent in the prior case. Defendants may be collaterally estopped from contesting issues of infringement and patent validity.More... |
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| Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 |
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| Part of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 provided that copyrighted works be protected for the duration of the author's life plus no less than 50 years. The European Union extended the 50 year protection to 70 years in 1993, and the United States did the same on October 28, 1998, with the signing of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). CTEA allows works still under copyright in the United States to be granted copyright protection for the duration of the author's life plus 70 years for individual works and corporate works. Works published before January 1, 1978, are protected for up to 95 years. Works-for-hire, anonymous, or pseudonymous works are protected for 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation under CTEA. The Act is named after the now-deceased songwriter and singer Sonny Bono, who had lobbied for copyright extension. CTEA is also known as the "Mickey Mouse Act" because one of the biggest proponents of the bill was the Disney company. CTEA does not retroactively apply to works for which copyright protection had expired as of October 28, 1998.More... |
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| Plant Variety Protection Act |
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| United States patent law has provided patent protection for new varieties of asexually reproduced plants since the 1930s. Congress passed the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) in 1970 to "encourage the development of novel varieties of sexually reproduced plants and to make them available to the public." More... |
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