Re: copyright for combinatorial entities

you likely
couldn't copyright, say, a particular cubic planar bridgeless
graph, if for no other reason than doing so would fly in the
face of the reason for having copyright in the first place, namely
the encouragement of expression in the arts and sciences.

I don't understand the grammar here, but does the _reason_
of the copyright matter ? So, could you lose the copyright
when the reason changes or expires ?

The list of random numbers is interesting, though. I'd opine
that this would deserve copyright protection, although one
could cite precedence where a US court ruled that a list
of names and associated telephone numbers was not copyrightable.

perhaps they were not random enough ?
I'd assumed that it were the other way round - the more randomness
the less creativity.

It's even more complicated than that in general, since the
courts have decided (stupidly, IMO) that some algorithms can
be patented, but that's another story.

Your best bet, if you're really interested, would be to ask this
in a ng devoted to intellectual property (if such a thing exists).

I did.

Even better, spend some money and ask a suitable lawyer.

what do they know ? All info is public.

Regards,

Rick



Chip Eastham

In US American law copyright pertains to authorship
of various forms of expression in fixed media.

You could create a representation of a graph in
some medium, e.g. on paper or in a computer
document of some kind, and then as the author
you would (in US law) have a copyright in that
work.

You would doubtless face an uphill challenge in
blocking the publication of an adjacency matrix
that corresponds to your graph, using only the
protections afforded by copyright. Arguably if
you could prove (by a preponderance of the
evidence standard) that another party had
derived the adjacency matrix from your work,

easy to prove

then theirs would be a derivative work subject
to your approval for its creation.

yes, but can I forbid them to post the adjacancy matrix ?

However US law contains a "fair use" provision
and in many respects promotes the creation of
new works whose connection with prior works is
merely one of shared ideas communicated by the
publication of those works.

fair use doesn't apply, when the owner explicitely
publically announces that he doesn't want any
disclosure of the matrix before a certain date
by someone else.

Only the originality of the manner of expression
of those ideas is intended to be protected by
copyright law. No monopoly on the underlying
ideas is intended.

the idea is trivial. It's the data itself which is
important, which matters.

The distinction between discovery and invention
is pertinent to application for patentability,
but not to copyright.

regards, chip


So I couldn't copyright the definition of a snark, but I could
copyright one that "just happens to be isomorphic to" the Peterson
graph?

isomorphism is another issue. Noone must post isomorphic
representations either nor any subgraph while simultaneously
pointing out that it is a subgraph. From that data the original
graph can be narrowed and others doing the same would finally
enable exact deduction of an isomorph of the graph.

I've seen some people copyright their proofs. OTOH, most of those
proofs wouldn't stand up to review.

--- Christopher Heckman


but let's restrict this to random numbers which could serve
as codes or keywords.
So, can I copyright a _big_ random number and forbid others
to post substrings of its digits , sue them if they do ?
What is the actually smallest copyrighted number which
I mustn't publish on my webpage ?

Guenter.

.

Relevant Pages

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