Copyright and Design

Returning to the issue of the interface of copyright and design patents, which I discussed here on May 12:

In the course of my research for an upcoming book review, I've gone as I sometimes do beyond the 'four corners' of the book and have read the following blog post, from Pamela Samuelson:

https://patentlyo.com/patent/2017/05/overlapping-protecting-innovations.html

That entry, posted almost precisely a year ago now, contends that in the specific field of application program interface (API) there isn't any significant overlap between the two sorts of IP protection.

That position puts Ms Samuelson (portrayed here, a professor at Berkeley Law) at odds with the Federal Circuit, which recently (in ORACLE v. GOOGLE) said precisely the opposite.

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