inghwee@hotmail.com (chokie) wrote in message news:<67da4328.0402211840.14413f17@posting.google.com>...
Hi! I am reposting a message in response to comments I had received.
1. I was curious about how one should file for copyright of a
conceptual framework. The situation I have in mind is say a student
who was doing economics, finance and business research in the social
sciences who in the
course of writing a thesis developed a conceptual framework.
In so far as I was concerned, the work is fixed on a media (paper). It
has to be because ultimately, the student do need to submit a thesis
wherein the framework (in diagram) and the regression model can be
reproduced.
Fine. That makes that particular fixation of the work copyrightable:
his figures and his words. It doesn't even need to be registered to be
copyrighted, but it helps in going after infringers if it is.
Copyright still does not protect the ideas. If the ideas are any good,
anybody can still take them and express them in a different way.
Copyright in no way prevents that.
The usual forms for protection of ideas, as opposed to the words that
convey the ideas, are trade secret and patent. I'm not sure how one
would go about maintaining trade-secret protection on work that's
published in a thesis, because a thesis has to be published openly,
but a trade secret is only a secret so long as you keep it a secret.
2. Given that the work has been fixed on a media, the student argued
that the regression model is original. It has to be orginal in order
for someone to submit a thesis. The case I have in mind is that no one
in academia had studied a particular as a dependent variable before.
Hence, what is original is the relationship between the the dependent
variable and the independent variables.
3. With regard to Jurisdiction, the idea is to seek copyright in the
united states.
Don't need to seek it. Copyright is automatic. Registration just adds
to copyright protection. But copyright still doesn't do what he wants,
which is preventing others from trading on his ideas.
If his ideas are at all worthwhile, the advice of a local lawyer who
deals regularly in intellectual property matters is also worthwhile.
--
Not a lawyer,
Chris Green
