unregistered source code from versions 1.1.1 or 2.2.2 that have been incorporated into version 3.0.
The registration specialist may communicate with the applicant if the program appears to contain an appreciable amount of unclaimable material and if the applicant does not exclude that material from the claim. Examples of factors that may prompt a specialist to inquire whether a computer program contains unclaimable material include the following:
• Multiple copyright notices.
• A copyright notice containing an earlier date than either the completion year or the publication date specified in the application.
• A copyright notice containing multiple dates.
• A copyright notice containing a different name than the author or copyright claimant named in the application.
• Multiple version numbers or multiple release numbers (if it appears that the previous versions may have been published or registered or if they may be owned by a party other than the copyright claimant].
• A revision history in the deposit indicating that changes were made to the program after the year of completion or date of publication specified in the application.
• An indication that the author created the work using another computer program as an authoring tool.
If the deposit contains multiple dates or multiple version/release numbers, the applicant should notify the registration specialist if those dates or numbers refer to the development history of the program or if they refer to previous versions of the program that have not been published or registered before. When submitting an online application, this information may be provided in the Note to Copyright Office field; when completing a paper application this information may be provided in a cover letter.
If the program contains only a minimal amount of unclaimable material or if the program contains material that is uncopyrightable, there is no need to exclude that material from the application. Unclaimable material should be excluded only if that material is copyrightable and represents an appreciable portion of the work.
Example:
• Professor Barrakat submits an application for a computer program titled BearCat 5.0. The program contains 5,000 lines of source code, including 50 lines that appeared in a previously published version of the same program. There is no need to exclude these 50 lines of code from the application, because they do not represent an appreciable portion of the program code for BearCat 5.0.
Chapter 700 : 44
12/22/2014
