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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Copyright only protects expression | 202 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Copyright only protects expression
Authored by: bugstomper on Thursday, January 31 2013 @ 10:46 PM EST
There is no problem if the example code in the patent is protected by copyright
for the purpose of modifying and distributing as running software, as long as
the text of the patent (which includes the source code) is free to copy and
publish as text and read. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the
idea itself. The patent says "This is how it is done. I own the rights to
do it exactly this way for the life of the patent. You must get a license from
me to write your own program that performs this function this way." The
copyright says "If you want a program that performs this function this way
you will have to understand how the function works, perhaps by reading my
example code in the patent, and then independently write your own program. Or
get a license from me to use the software I've written." The patent and the
copyright have to do with different rights and have different lifetimes.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Eh. - Authored by: myNym on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 12:10 AM EST
    • Eh. - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 04:54 AM EST
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