By the way, many protected creations, often circuits, state explicitly that they can't be copied/made/published/whatever without written permission from the Author .... which you just got.
Without a patent, that statement is meaningless (except for direct copies of drawings or artwork, of course).
circuits, circuit topologies, "inventions" are only protected by patents
such boilerplate has no legal force if not protected by active patent
please quit with the conflation of Copyright with hardware IP protection - hardware is Not software, drawing, artwork, articles, Trademarks
it isn't even a matter of "politeness" or "community standards" - any such request applied to hardware, circuits comes from ignorance of >century established standards in what is intellectual commons
if someone isn't ignorant of the distinction then I see "asking" for control of some circuit idea as attempted theft from the commons
such boilerplate has no legal force if not protected by active patent
please quit with the conflation of Copyright with hardware IP protection - hardware is Not software, drawing, artwork, articles, Trademarks
it isn't even a matter of "politeness" or "community standards" - any such request applied to hardware, circuits comes from ignorance of >century established standards in what is intellectual commons
if someone isn't ignorant of the distinction then I see "asking" for control of some circuit idea as attempted theft from the commons
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I am getting bored with repeating this, and I'm sure you are all getting bored with hearing it, but in Europe a court of law is very likely to regard copyright as sufficient protection for a circuit. We sometimes use copyright for situations where the US (and others) would use patents. I know you find this hard to believe.
This kind of detail is seldom written for a marketed product.
That kind of detail is usually written in a engineering description for "theory of operation" for a magazine article, white paper, or patent.
Having been through the intellectual property thing many times myself (both in industry and as technical editor of Vacuum Tube Valley), I have to heartily agree with both SY and jcx: the only thing protecting a circuit from being copied is a patent that is defended. With a few exceptions, most audio designers don't patent their circuits, due to the cost of filing and defending the patents. To avoid violating the other pillars of IP protection, don't exactly copy the PC board layout or user manual (copyright), and don't call it a "Maplin" amplifier (trademark) ("Maplin-like" is probably OK). In the US, copyright now lasts essentially forever and a trademark lasts as long as it is still being used in commerce. You don't even have to register a copyright or trademark, but registration give better legal protection. So whenever you see a construction article that says something like "copying this circuit is prohibited for commercial purposes", the author is both wrong and exposing his IP ignorance.
My experience with patents, copyright, and trademarks is based on US law, but most other countries have similar IP laws, at least on the books.
- John Atwood
My experience with patents, copyright, and trademarks is based on US law, but most other countries have similar IP laws, at least on the books.
- John Atwood
A PCB design or a schematic is protected by copyright law, so they can be redrawn/redesigned without any problem. Copy/paste for in a manual needs permission from the copyright holder. A copyright mark printed on a PCB only covers the PCB design and not the circuit.
A circuit is not protected by copyright law and needs a patent to have any form of protection.
Patents would become meaningless, and as SY and I have asked cite a single case. Our IP council knows of none.
yes it is hard to find the limitations of Copyrightable material spelled out explicitly as in "xyz is not covered" for all values of "xyz"
but DF96 own ref leads with:
maybe this helps? - I can't be sure given the particulars of legal language differing even more than British English from American
page 61 http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf
but DF96 own ref leads with:
maybe this helps? - I can't be sure given the particulars of legal language differing even more than British English from American
page 61 http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf
Attachments
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See http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-essential.pdf for a summary of what the UK government believes to be true about UK copyright law.
The issue is actually quite simple: did a copy take place, with or without modification? If so, did the copier have permission to do it?
If you could produce an item of equipment using a circuit, yet without copying or producing a derivative work from the circuit diagram, then no copyright infringement has taken place. This means no PCB layout, no wiring diagram - just make an object based on the circuit.
The issue is actually quite simple: did a copy take place, with or without modification? If so, did the copier have permission to do it?
Under UK law you don't "copyright" anything; copyright exists simply because the work has been brought into existence. The person drawing a circuit diagram has copyright in that diagram.Mark Whitney said:
In the UK too there are specific exemptions for personal study or backup. Copying a work for non-commercial purposes is OK, provided you can show that you have not deprived the copyright holder of economic gain. However, this won't let you photocopy an entire book, on the grounds that you were never intending to buy the whole book so the author has not lost a sale!
If you could produce an item of equipment using a circuit, yet without copying or producing a derivative work from the circuit diagram, then no copyright infringement has taken place. This means no PCB layout, no wiring diagram - just make an object based on the circuit.
If one reads that brochure, it's evident that there's nothing covering a circuit (as long as the schematic as originally drawn is not reproduced and any artwork like PCB is not directly copied), consistent with the experience of the subset of posters here who deal with technical IP issues on a daily basis.
May I assume that you cannot cite a single case of using a published circuit that was deemed to be a copyright violation?The absence of evidence is admittedly not evidence of absence, but if your assertion were true, it should be trivial to find one. Lawyers would be feasting.
May I assume that you cannot cite a single case of using a published circuit that was deemed to be a copyright violation?The absence of evidence is admittedly not evidence of absence, but if your assertion were true, it should be trivial to find one. Lawyers would be feasting.
See my last paragraph in post 93. As often happens, in arguing a case I have clarified my own thinking. Copyright protects the circuit diagram. If you can make the circuit or modify it without copying the diagram then no infringement has occured. Producing a PCB layout (unless solely in your head) is a derivative work.
This has been how things work in the UK. If a circuit is published, say in a magazine, then the author (or the magazine, depending on who owns the copyright) can license others to commercially produce things based on that circuit e.g. a kit. If what you are all saying is true, then no licence is needed and we have all been doing it wrong here for decades.
To cite an example, there is the 'PW Texan'. Designed by an application engineer at Texas Instruments in Bedford to encourage people to use 741s and 748s in audio, it was published (in 1972?) in Practical Wireless and two or three companies were licensed to sell kits. I bought one. If copyright was not relevant then no licencing would have been needed.
This has been how things work in the UK. If a circuit is published, say in a magazine, then the author (or the magazine, depending on who owns the copyright) can license others to commercially produce things based on that circuit e.g. a kit. If what you are all saying is true, then no licence is needed and we have all been doing it wrong here for decades.
To cite an example, there is the 'PW Texan'. Designed by an application engineer at Texas Instruments in Bedford to encourage people to use 741s and 748s in audio, it was published (in 1972?) in Practical Wireless and two or three companies were licensed to sell kits. I bought one. If copyright was not relevant then no licencing would have been needed.
If one hypothetically opens a magazine and sees a schematic, that looks good and is recognisable as fitting a memorable pattern, can one close the magazine and from memory draw out one's own version of the schematic, without infringing copyright of the magazine?
Can one, then design one's own PCB for that sch without infringing copyright?
Can one, then design one's own PCB for that sch without infringing copyright?
I sure it wasn't unless the names and the article were used as an endorsement.
There's no point in this argument I'm certain you have a misconception about the law, a quick search found several reverse engineering services in the UK and IC reverse engineering services with UK offices all doing their thing for decades.
Maybe "Wireless World" should sell pages for us to publish our schematics rather than pay lawyers and foreign patent filing fees.
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