Anyway patent, trademarks and copyrights are all different things in intellectual property law and we’re discussing copyright here.
Numbers cannot be trademarked. That is why Intel stopped giving their processors numbered names (286, 386, and 486) and moved to words (Pentium, Xeon, etc.).
In 2013 there was a ruling in the US supreme court that naturally occurring DNA sequences could not be patented. So probably most of the patents involving HeLa cells are not valid anymore.
Patents involving HeLa cells, not patents of HeLa cells. HeLA cells used today have been modified with genes inserted from the HPV virus, among others.
A book can be expressed as a series of numbers but they wouldn’t be a random series. If somebody went through and deleted every hundredth character, you’d almost certainly be able to figure out what those missing characters were from the remaining text. But if you had a phone book and somebody deleted every hundredth character, the missing numbers would be lost - there’s no way you can deduce a missing digit in a phone number from the digits around it.
Of course, one might argue that that makes the phone book even more creative than the works of Shakespeare.
Nowadays? Not much, since we have computerized random number generators. But back in the day, a book like that was your random number generator. A commenter near the bottom of the page gives one (possibly fictional, but plausible) example: He wanted to do a random survey of some region, and used the book to generate random phone numbers to call.
You might also use it for random inputs into a simulation, or to model some form of experimental error.
In the US at least, you can’t copyright a font.
Ah, thank you.
I’ll have to look this up, because it seems odd. First, theft of proprietary data from a company wouldn’t be espionage, I think. Something else the FBI could be involved in, yes. Second, “public domain” code is usually not really public domain. If you look closely enough you’ll see that it is covered by one of a number of open source licenses. These all have different terms, but it is quite likely that code trivially changed would be required to remain open under the license.
There have been several major lawsuits around this issue.
With a photograph you are choosing the setting, the framing, the exposure, lighting, depth of field and many other creative decisions. A 3D scan is not effected by lighting, its quite simply a list of XYZ positions in 3D space, about as clearly a “list of facts” as you can get. Now if you’re 3D scanning a sculpture which is under copyright your 3D scan is a derived work and can be copyrighted. But a 3D scan of an ordinary house house tea pot, shouldn’t be able to copyrighted (in theory).
I’m surprised there hasn’t been any relevant court rulings on similar issues. Tables of measured data of this kind are quite valuable in various engineering fields, so you’d expect cases to have arisen. Maybe they’ve all been settled privately.
Yep, that’s why there’s so little case law. From my understanding lawyers always tell clients in IP cases to settle.
Au contraire. Chanel No. 5. BMW 5 Series. Heinz 57. Formula 409. Levi 501’s. Boeing 747. 999 Tonic.
What’s being traded marked there is the combination of a brand name and a number plus their distinctive logos. Anyone can make a perfume using the number 5, I can sell “CoreMelt No 5” perfume but I can’t sell Chanel No 5 or copy their font style or anything else. Same with your other examples.
It is true that intel stopped using the x86 naming scheme because they couldn’t stop AMD calling their CPU’s the AMD 586. Thats why Intel went to the “Core” CPU naming scheme and AMD went to the K6.
I notice that there are two number 5s in this list. Should BMW sue Chanel or vice versa?
A trademark is limited to the area in which the underlying product or service is actually sold. So Chanel’s trademark is probably limited to “cosmetics and fragrances” or a category along those lines. If you make a “No. 5 table saw” nobody is going to confuse your product with Chanel’s. **Acsenray **can probably explain this more delicately.
As a rule, lawyers in all areas of law always tell clients to settle. But cases still get to trial occasionally.
For the record, BMW has not trademarked “5 Series” or any of its other model designators (at least in the US).
That depends. Is Chanel making cars, or is BMW making perfume?
Trademarks are use-dependent. There’s nothing wrong with two completely unrelated products using matching trademarks.
For one example, take “Starcraft”. It’s both a computer game and a brand of recreational vehicles. If you see an RV with the word “Starcraft” on the side, you can take that as an indication that it was made by that company. If you saw a van, say, with the same word on it, you’d probably be reasonable in assuming that that company branched out, and was now also making vans. If someone else makes an RV, or camper trailer, or van, and puts that name on the side of it, without that company’s permission, they’re trying to trick you into thinking someone else made it: That’s an infringement, and the original company could sue them over it. But if you see a computer game labeled with the same word, nobody would ever assume that it was made by the RV company, and so there’s no potential for confusion, and hence no trademark infringement.
You can’t copyright a typeface (the appearance of the letters themselves), or the actual arrangement of dots that make one up (as in pre-1995-era “bitmap” fonts).
You certainly can–and most font companies do–copyright a font, which is the software program that actually draws the typeface on the computer screen or page.
Would there be a burden of proof discrepancy? In the first one, the originator could claim that those items were arranged creatively. The burden of proof is for the copier to prove otherwise. With numbers, would the burden of proof be on the originator to prove that they are part of an intelligent series of numbers?
If both are admitted to be random, then I guess the question is whether the whole process itself is the art and the product would be protected as part of that process.
And then, to confuse things, what if the originator only claims to own that string of numbers if they are tabbed and using Comic Sans? That way, the originator is presenting it as design, and not as content.