Any IP Lawyers About?

FIRST let me state I am NOT a patent lawyer. i am just making a comment for consideration, based on what has been drilled into us employees by my company's patent Lawyers.

I am not sure a quote can be viewed as IP , which has to be protected by a patent. I would doubt you can patent "quotes". If someting is'nt patented and is published either by verbal communication or in written form it is no longer patentable.

On the other hand copyright may exist so if a "quote" is taken from a published work which is copyrighted by the author then permission is offically needed to publish it again, though I am not sure how long copyright exits for. I mean is William Shakespeare officially still copyright?

regards
GEOFF

You might find this useful: Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

I am not an intellectual property attorney, but from I recall from my American law school, it seems to me that the use of another person's quotation in the service of the promotion of a product or commercial transaction is an innapropriate "appropriation" of that person and is compensable. It gives the impression that that person endorses the product.

Just a thought. We just had a jury verdict over here last week in which a man won $15 million from Nestle because it has been using his likeness on the outside of one of its canisters for something like 25 years. It was the "appropriation" of his likeness to sell the product that did them in. A quote is something like that, I think.

Good luck.

Judd
Ps. Not legal advice to be relied on. I'm not longer an attorney anyway.

Geoff, Jeremy, Justin,

Thanks for the thoughts - although my question's not answered yet. Jeremy yes, the CDP Act - why didn't I think of reading that. It seems that, kind of as I thought, literary work is protected up to 50 years after the authors death. So, no problem with Shakespear (although I once heard he's living with Elvis above a bookies in Cockfosters). Maybe I'll have to limit myself to "old" quotes - which is a shame 'cause I like that John Cage one.

Any one else? Surely there's a real life practicing IP lawyer lurking around here?

Phil

Phil

I'm not an IP lawyer, so this is just an overview [insert legal disclaimer here]. As is inevitable with things legal, the position is not clear-cut except around the extremes.

Copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. Feel free to use: "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life" (Ludwig van B). Rather good I think, though probably not terribly relevant to your brochure.

Assuming you need to use a quote from someone alive or not so long deceased, it is arguable that there is no copyright in a sentence – you need to take a substantial part. This is not however a quantative test; copyright subsists if you take the essence of the work. A line from a song may not be copyright, but quoting the whole chorus is very likely to be. Copyright might subsist in "We shall fight them on the beaches" but as it is only a fragment of the speech you should be OK.

There are exceptions – reporting is fine, as is criticism or review of a work. Common sense does come into it. "A Day in the Life" may be irretrievably associated in most of our minds with the Beatles, and "Look Back in Anger" with angry young 60's playwrights (or Oasis), but they are common or garden English phrases.

Properly attributing the quote to the author is of course sensible, but will not solve the copyright problem.

It is of course important to avoid the quote appearing to create a commercial connection – this would stray past the area of copyright and into product endorsement (which in today's world means real money and therefore should be avoided).

Commercially, the real skill is a pragmatic risk assessment of your use of a quote being challenged by an author or his/her estate. Much is common sense, but is the area where good copyright/media lawyers really earn their money. The key questions/issues are:

> What is the audience for the product containing the quote, and how widely will it be distributed?
> How media sensitive is the author/his estate?
> Is the quote effectively part of the author's commercial body of work e.g "All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust" (Clash – London Calling), rather than " Rock doesn't change anything" (Joe Strummer interview)?
> What products/services will the brochure be selling? The author is more likely to protest if it's a porn magazine brochure, for example.
> It's better to quote dead people – their estates owe a duty to their benficiarires not to waste money, for example going after someone who they think is being a bit cheeky
> Avoid song lyrics.

The lyrics to Happy Birthday are still copyright by the way

FWIW

Timo

Tim,

Thanks for that - a really useful description of the issue. It's a mine-field really isn't it? Think I'll stick to long-dead people.

Phil