Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: Copyright published format and idea

Your idea would not be protected under copyright law. However, the expression of the idea may be protectable. Accordingly, you may wish to consider filing copyright application(s) with the Library of Congress for your original work(s) of authorship.

Regards,

Bill Wright

Re: Copyright published format and idea

Attorney Wright is right. The law specifies that copyright does not protect an IDEA, although it can protect the novel EXPRESSION of an idea. Certainly it is a good idea to obtain the copyright in all text and artwork (by having it generated by an employee of the company as a work made for hire, or alternatively by having a written agreement as to ownership of copyright with any outside contractor generating any work of authorship).

It would be desirable for you to develop with the aid of an intellectual property attorney an overall strategy to protect your company's IP. In addition to copyright, there's the possibility of trademark and trade dress protection, and maybe even something to patent.