• After a certificate of registration has been issued by the Office, the owner of the mask work or the exclusive licensee of all rights in the mask work may institute a civil action for infringement provided the infringement occurred after the commencement of the term of protection.
17U.S.C. §§908(f),910.
1205 Ineligible Mask Works
1205.1 De Minimis Authorship
Sections 902(b)(1) and (2) of the Act state that protection shall not be available to a mask work that is not original or that consists of designs that are staple, commonplace, or familiar in the semiconductor industry, or variations of such designs, combined in a way that, considered as a whole, is not original. The Office may question applications for mask works that appear to be very simple (consisting of only a few electronic components) if the Nature of Contribution statement or the deposit material indicate that the mask work is unoriginal, staple, commonplace, or familiar. The Office will refuse registration if it is clear from the deposit materials or from statements given in space 8 of the application that the mask work is unoriginal, staple, commonplace, or familiar.
1205.2 Claim Received More Than Two Years After the Date of First Commercial Exploitation
As discussed in Section 1204.5(A), protection of a mask work is lost if a claim is not registered within two years of the date of first commercial exploitation of the mask work. Thus, the Office will refuse any claims received more than two years after the date of first exploitation. The Office will deem a claim timely received if the Office receives an acceptable completed application, deposit, and filing fee within the two-year period.
1206 Term of Protection
Protection for a mask work commences on the date the mask work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or the date that the mask work is first commercially exploited anywhere in the world, whichever occurs first. Protection lasts for ten years (terminating at the end of the tenth calendar year after it began). 17 U.S.C. § 904.
1207 Exclusive Rights in Mask Works
During the term of protection, the mask work owner has the following exclusive rights:
• To reproduce the mask work by optical, electronic, or any other means;
• To import or distribute a semiconductor chip product in which the mask work is embodied; and
• To induce or knowingly to cause another person to do any of the acts described immediately above.
17 U.S.C. §905.
Chapter 1200 : 8
12/22/2014
