[Clipart] Re: clipart Digest, Vol 31, Issue 44

[Jon Phillips]

On Mon, 2006-10-30 at 14:57 -0800, John Olsen wrote:
> "U.S. patent law has two things to say about copyright and patent
> illustrations.
> 
>            1. Applicatoins are specifically allowed to claim copyright
> in patent drawings.
>            2. If copyright is claimed, the following permission must
> also be given:
> 
>             "A portion of the disclosure of this patent document
> contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work)
> protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the
> facsimile reproduction by any­one of the patent document or the patent
> disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent
> file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work)
> rights whatsoever." [1]
>             In other words, verbatim copies of patent illustrations
> are fine, derivatives would be more questionable. iMeowbot~Mw 03:41,
> 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)"
> 
> 
> So as I read this, if Lucas claims on the patent form that the
> Tauntaun is covered under copyright and his attorneys do everything
> else right then it can be copyrighted.  Without that it would be PD.
> But it also says it's fine to use verbatim copies of the
> illustrations.  Sounds more like "fair use" then PD, as PD would allow
> for editting and manipulation and other derivatives.  We can't control
> that on the OCAL and actually encourage remixes.
> 
> John

Ok, so basically, we could hunt through their DB and find all public
domain images (or the ones that are not copyrighted). Thus, hopefully
there is a programmatic way to do this search and get back a gazillion
images that we can use...I bet there are a tons pre 1950 that we could
use and the closer we get to present, the more restricted the images
will be.

Has anyone looked at their db? It would be worth a 30 minute call to
call them and figure out how to find this in their db, and then we could
write a script to pull all public domain images from their
website...this would be a fun task that Jonadab might be interested in?
He is a perl pro...what do you think?

Jon


> On Monday, October 30, 2006, at 01:27PM, "Russell Ossendryver"
> <worldlabel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >The applicant has a right to copywrite drawing in the patent
> >submission as per
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:PD-US-patent
> >
> >On 10/30/06, John Olsen <johnny_automatic at mac.com> wrote:
> >>  >Whoooooaaaaa...this breaks open an even large issue....Are all US
> patent
> >> >illustrations public domain???? This would be huge!
> >> >
> >> >Yes, in light of this illustration, I think its fine to create
> something
> >> >similar to this...this is arguable because there is a PD version
> of
> >> >it...
> >> >
> >> >Jon
> >> >
> >> >--
> >> >Jon Phillips
> >>
> >> I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is YES, all U.S. Patent
> illustrations are PD.  They cannot be copyrighted.  On the other hand,
> I wonder if any image of a trademarked character can be used in this
> way.  For example, if I invent a Mickey Mouse clock,  the image
> submitted to the Patent Office might well be PD, but the trademark on
> Mickey Mouse would almost certainly trump that.  Seems like a fuzzy
> area.
> >>
> >> John Olsen
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> clipart mailing list
> >> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
> >> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
> >>
> >
> >
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> 
-- 
Jon Phillips

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