the registration materials, the Office’s records, or other sources of information that are known by the Office or the general public. Knowingly making a false representation of a material fact in an application for copyright registration, or in any written statement filed in connection with an application, is a crime that is punishable under 17 U.S.C. § 506(e).
Ordinarily, the Office will not conduct its own factual investigation to confirm the truth of the statements made in the application. However, the Office may take administrative notice of facts or matters that are known by the Office or the general public, and may communicate with the applicant if the application appears to contain inaccurate or erroneous information.
309.3 No Precedential Value
The determination of copyrightability will be made on a case-by-case basis. The fact that the U.S. Copyright Office registered a particular work does not necessarily mean that the Office will register similar types of works or works that fall within the same category. A decision to register a particular work has no precedential value and is not binding upon the Office when it examines any other application.
310 Factors That Will Not Be Considered in the Examination of Originality
As a general rule, the U.S. Copyright Office will not consider factors that have no bearing on whether the originality requirement has been met. Examples of such factors are discussed in Sections 310.1 through 310.10 below.
310.1 Novelty or Ingenuity
The U.S. Copyright Office will examine each work in isolation to determine whether it satisfies the originality requirement. The fact that a work may be novel, distinctive, innovative, or even unique is irrelevant to this analysis. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 51 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5664 (stating “the standard of originality established by the courts … does not include requirements of novelty [or] ingenuity” and that Congress did not intend “to enlarge the standard of copyright protection” to impose these requirements).
As discussed in Section 308, “originality requires independent creation plus a modicum of creativity.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 346. The author’s expression does not need to be novel, and it does not need to “be presented in an innovative or surprising way.” Id. at 362; see also L. Batlin & Son v. Snyder, 536 F.2d 486, 490 (2d. Cir. 1976) (“Originality is … distinguished from novelty; there must be independent creation, but it need not be invention in the sense of striking uniqueness, ingeniousness, or novelty”). A work of authorship may be original, even though it is neither new nor inventive or even if “it closely resembles other works.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 345 (explaining that “[o]riginality does not signify novelty”). Conversely, the fact that a work is new, innovative, or even unique does not necessarily mean that it contains a sufficient amount of creative expression to satisfy the originality requirement.
