IP law : Copyrights and patents

So first, the disclaimer.  I, the author, am not a lawyer.  This article does not constitute legal advice and one should ALWAYS seek legal advice in accordance to legal concerns.

A further preamble is, laws are laws, and most laws are subject to interpretation at any given time.  Some laws are more vague than others, and as such, copyright laws have a tendency to be more subject to interpretation than patent laws.

The powers that be whom write and edit wikipedia articles, describe patents as follows: "A patent (/ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem, and may be a product or a process.^[1]:17 Patents are a form of intellectual property."

And they describe copyright as follows: "Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time, with the intention of enabling the creator of intellectual wealth (e.g. the photographer of a photograph or the author of a book) to receive compensation for their work and be able to financially support themselves."

Other IP law includes trademarks and trade secrets, among possible others.  No IP law can control ideas or thoughts, although due to their nature, they do appear to at least cause people to consider, if not prevent, the acting on or sharing of thoughts and ideas.


Of course, there are strong and valid arguments on both sides of these laws.  That said, these laws and treatise are in place and as such, must be abided to.

Now, patents are patents and interpretation of the law pretty much revolves around whether a patent (or patent pending) invention has been infringed.  It may seem cut and dry, although it is up to the courts to determine things like similarity to or intention.  Probably the most concerning part here is, any invention which has not been patented runs the risk of being challenged in court, which can be very costly to the person being sued, even if there has been no patent infringement.

So the moral to the patent law is, if you have an invention, check with the patent offices before you produce and share the invention, lest ye risk an unwarranted and undesirable lawsuit.

Copyright is probably more grey than patent.  At least from the point of view that it covers much more content and applies to all countries who are part of the Berne Convention.  Copyright deals with "prior art" and as such covers much territory including music, written works, art work in its many forms, and other performances, among other.

For all intents and purposes, anyone who produces any works within countries covered by the Berne Convention are protected by copyright.  No application for copyright protection need be made nor cited.  Yet, in certain countries, there are adjustments to the Berne convention and one should always seek legal council if in doubt.  As an example, some countries have agreed to article 6bis which allows for the original author to claim "moral rights", even if copyright has been transferred to another party and copyright has not yet expired by time or by authors death.  So for example, if the country of origin for authored work and description of the process regarding nuclear fission had been Canada, patent or not, the original author could have legally objected and successfully prevented the use of that invention to be used for warfare.  There can be slight crossover of patent and copyright, even though it could be argued that something is patentable and that copyright would not apply, to prevent others from producing derived works from prior art.  As always, it would probably be a lengthy and costly court battle.

Another, and probably the most contentious part of copyright, is it's expiry and therefore it's change of status to "Public Domain".  For all intents and purposes, the Berne convention implicitly states that the date of copyright expiration is specific to the country of origin and as such, all countries in the Berne convention must honour that expiration date.  Yet often, people in countries whose copyright expiration is earlier than that of the country of origin for the work, will publish the work openly and publicly, earlier than it legally can be, claiming that the work is in the public domain.

To add to the confusion and risk, a person who is listening to music can not allow others to also listen to the music and a person who has a book cannot legally allow another to read that book or display art for others to see.  Any and all exceptions, such as radio stations, libraries, art galleries, etc, all have specific licensing to allow them to rebroadcast, share, or display copyright material.

Suffice it to say, no matter how ridiculous we think the above assertions are.  The law is the law and that is, implicitly, what it states.  Don't trust your own interpretations of the law and trust that even a lawyer may find their own opinions or legal assertions in your defence, may not be enough to find you harmless when it comes to IP law.

The more and the sooner we all defend our own rights to IP law, yet crack open the laws that bind innovation and our future freedom, through movements such as Open Source, the better off we all are likely to be.