Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Illinois

Re: Copyrights

Blackjack-style card games are patentable. See, for example, U.S. Patent #6,012,719 at www.uspto.gov. This means that the owner of the patent has "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention, that is what is claimed in the patent, in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. Ideas, methods, or systems are not subject to copyright protection.

Copyright protection, therefore, is not available for ideas or procedures for doing, making, or building things; scientific or technical methods or discoveries; business operations or procedures; mathematical principles; formulas, algorithms; or any other concept, process, or method of operation. Copyright protection extends to a description, explanation, or illustration of an idea or system, assuming that the requirements of the copyright law are met. Copyright in such a case protects the particular literary or pictorial expression chosen by the author. However, it gives the copyright owner no exclusive rights in the idea, method, or system involved.

Suppose, for example, that an author writes a book explaining a new system for food processing. The copyright in the book, which comes into effect at the moment the work is fixed in a tangible form, will prevent others from publishing the text and illustrations describing the author's ideas for machinery, processes, and merchandising methods. But it will not give the author any rights to prevent others from adopting the ideas for commercial purposes or from developing or using the machinery, processes, or methods described in the book.

THE ABOVE ADVICE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO CREATE AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS REGARDING ANY MATERIAL PRESENTED HEREIN, I RECOMMEND THAT YOU CONSULT AN ATTORNEY. THIS INFORMATION IS BEING PROVIDED BY AN ATTORNEY IN ACTIVE PRACTICE IN THE STATE OF ILLINOIS AND CURRENTLY HOLDS AN ACTIVE LAW LICENSE IN THAT STATE ONLY.