Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:34:49 -0500
From: thaughey <thaughey at acnet.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Q: What do you call two MDs who travel back in  time to cure pivotal figures and protect the timeline?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

If neither a phrase or title can be copyrighted, then one wonders if a
book consisting of nothing but titles can be copyrighted.  Or is such a
book copyrighted without conferring copyright upon its constituant
parts?  That would really disappoint all those people who have stars
named after them.  --Tom Haughey

Mike B. wrote:

>At 07:47 PM 4/11/05 -0400, Colleen Cahill wrote:
>
>>Yes, Copyright has some interesting things in it.  At
>>http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/ my favorite question is "Can I protect
>>my sighting of Elvis?"  Answer at
>>http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#elvis.
>>
>
>When it comes to the PTO, never say never.  Given some of the patents they
>are issuing these days that violate the most basic requirements for
>patentability (such as obviousness to one skilled in the art, or prior art,
>etc.), particularly in the area of software patents, who knows what they
>will get up to when it comes to copyright?  Though in that case the courts
>would have to play a bigger role than they do with granting patents.  I can
>copyright anything for a fee...enforcement is another matter.  Patents are
>supposed to be prevented unless they are really patentable, but aren't always.
>
>Maybe one episode of Ernest's new series can have one of the doctors trying
>to cash in on patents by registering medical equipment far enough in the
>past to beat the true inventors.  Stuff like the refrigeration system used
>in medical instruments to keep them well below room temperature, those
>"gowns" that are sized to fit everyone poorly regardless of body
>configuration, or those particularly nauseating shades of green and yellow
>that they use to paint the insides of hospitals.
>
>-- Mike B.
>