The Office strongly encourages applicants to provide a title for each work that will be submitted for registration. Interested parties typically search for works by title, and it may be extremely difficult to find a particular work if the applicant fails to provide that information in the application. Moreover, a few courts have ruled that a registration does not cover a work unless the title of that work appears on the certificate of registration, although other courts have reached the opposite conclusion.
When completing an online application, the title for the collection as a whole should be provided on the Title screen as the "Title of work being registered." The title of each work that will be submitted for registration should be provided in the Contents Titles field. If the applicant provides these titles in the application, they will appear on the certificate of registration and the online public record under the heading Contents Title.
When completing a paper application, the title for the collection as a whole should be provided in space 1 under the heading marked Title of This Work. The title of the works that will be submitted for registration should be provided using Form CON. If the applicant provides this information in the application, the title of each work may be included in the certificate of registration and the online public record unless the applicant provides a substantial number of titles on Form CON.
In all cases, the titles of the works should be listed in the same order that they appear in the deposit copy.
If the applicant fails to provide a title for the collection, the registration specialist may use the title for the first work as the title for the collection as a whole. This title will appear in the certificate of registration and the online public record as the primary title for the collection.
If the applicant fails to provide a title for each work in the application, the registration record will contain only the title for the collection as a whole. However, it may be possible to add the title for each work to the registration record at a later date by filing an application for supplementary registration. For a discussion of this procedure, see Chapter 1800, Section 1802.6(C].
For additional guidance in completing the title field/space of the application, see Chapter 600, Sections 610.2 and 610.4.
1106.3(D) Publication / Completion
As discussed in Section 1106.1, all of the elements in the works must be unpublished. When completing an online application, the applicant should provide this information on the Publication/Completion screen. Specifically, the applicant should select "no" in the drop down menu marked "Has this work been published?" When completing a paper application, the portion of the application marked "Date and Nation of First Publication of This Particular Work" should be left blank.
When completing an online application, the applicant should identify the year that the works were completed on the Publication/Completion screen in the field marked Year of Completion (Year of Creation). When completing a paper application, the applicant
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