[OH Updates] Schematics and copyright

[Dave Jones]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 8:08 AM, Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:
> On 09/20/2011 02:15 PM, Alexander Chemeris wrote:
>
> Does it mean that schematics *is* protected by copyright?
>
> The problem is that copyright does not apply to a functional portion of a
> work, only the expressive portion. How a court treats this is best explained
> here in Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Associates_Int._Inc._v._Altai_Inc.
> That article might be difficult.
>
> The effect of this on schematics is:
> You probably can use copyright to restrict the distribution of copies of a
> schematic.
> You probably can not use copyright to restrict what is built from that
> schematic.
>
> People in our community often think we can use our licenses to do things
> that worked for software but do not work for hardware.
> If you also have a patent on the design, your license has much more
> strength.

Only if you can afford to defend a patent.
To successfully defend a patent in court almost always requires
upwards of $1,000,000
If you do not have that sort of money to spend on defending it, a
patent is next to useless to you, except to possibly use a tool to
intimidate other gullible people with who also do not have the money
to play patent attorney's at 20 paces.

Dave.

David L. Jones
www.eevblog.com
The Electronics Engineering Video Blog