- An extrapolation or application of an idea or system that always produces substantially the same result, such as a computation of interest based upon a particular rate.
The Office may register a literary, musical, graphic, or artistic description, explanation, or illustration of an idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, provided that the work contains a sufficient amount of original authorship. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 56 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5669. However, the registration would be limited to the copyrightable literary, musical, graphic, or artistic aspects of the work because copyright law does not give copyright owners any exclusive rights in the ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries described in their works. As such, copyright owners do not have the right to prevent others from using the ideas, concepts, principles, or discoveries or from implementing the procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation described in such works. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 344–45 (explaining that “[t]he most fundamental axiom of copyright law is that ‘no author may copyright his ideas or the facts he narrates.’” (quoting Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 556 (1985)).
313.3(B) Merger of Idea and Expression
In some cases, there may be only one way or only a limited number of ways to express a particular idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery. If the U.S. Copyright Office determines that extending copyright protection to the author’s expression would effectively accord protection to the idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery itself, the registration specialist may communicate with the applicant or may refuse to register the claim.
For example, the Office cannot register a claim in the mere idea for a story that is based on a common theme, such as “a quarrel between a Jewish father and an Irish father, the marriage of their children, the birth of grandchildren and a reconciliation.” See Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119, 122 (2d Cir. 1930). The Office cannot register a claim based solely on standard programming techniques that are commonly used to achieve a specific result in a computer program. See, e.g., Sega Enterprises, Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1524 (9th Cir. 1992). Likewise, the Office cannot register a claim based solely on standard expressions that naturally follow from the idea for a work of authorship, such as a sculpture that depicts a brightly colored jellyfish swimming in a vertical orientation. See Satava v. Lowry, 323 F.3d 805, 811 (9th Cir. 2003).
313.3(C) Facts
Facts are not copyrightable and cannot be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. “No one may claim originality as to facts … because facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 347 (internal citation omitted). A person who finds and records a particular fact does not create that fact; he or she merely discovers its existence. As a result, facts “are never original” and Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act “is universally understood to prohibit any copyright in facts.” Id. at 356. “[This] is true of all facts – scientific, historical, biographical, and news of the day.” Id. at 348.
