Examples:
• Brenda Bland creates a color-coded daily journal. The journal includes six columns with typical headings and multiple colors to aid the user in organizing content. The registration specialist will refuse to register this journal because it is a blank form that does not contain a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial authorship to support a registration.
• Bernice Brown creates a daily diary that includes six columns with typical headings and graphic artwork along the border of each page. The registration specialist will refuse to register the columns and headings because it is merely a blank form, but may register the decorative border if it is sufficiently creative.
• Blythe Burn files an application to register a "graphic aid for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease." The deposit copy consists of a blank form for recording patient data. The form contains eight boxes with various questions that are intended to identify symptoms of this disease. The registration specialist will refuse the claim in "graphic aid" and may refer the claim to the Literary Division to determine whether the textual authorship supports a claim in a literary work
924.3(C) Measuring and Computing Devices
Devices that are purely intended to compute, measure, and record data are useful articles. This includes any printed material on a device that provides the user with useful information, such as lines, numbers, symbols, colors, categories, and markings. Common examples of such devices include slide rulers, wheel dials, depth gauges, dive computers, echo-sounders, and perpetual calendar designs. These types of devices do not contain expressive authorship and are merely designed to calculate and produce facts, data, or other useful information. As such, they are not copyrightable. See 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(d).
Textual or artistic material that explains or illustrates a device and its use may be protectable if it is sufficiently creative, as long as it does not perform the actual useful function of the device. For example, an instruction manual with significant text and pictures that shows how to use a device may be registrable. However, the registration for that work would extend only to the descriptive or illustrative authorship and would not extend to the concept, physical design, and use of the device itself.
When asserting a claim in an instructional manual or other text or images that explain or illustrate a device, applicants should use terms that specifically describe the expressive, nonfunctional authorship that the author contributed to the work, such as "text of description of device," "text of instructions," "technical diagrams," or "photographs of device."
Chapter 900 : 44
12/22/2014
