Can/Should This Idea Be Copyrighted?

[dmhskowal]

I am currently working on a project that involves the development of a log book/diary. This project is tailored to a specific field of interest (or topic). It contains a fill-in-the-blank format for which I will be providing the user with "prompts" to record their thoughts. My preliminary searches have not found anything like it on the market. In order to prevent others from capitalizing on this idea, I'd like to protect it. Is registering this idea with a copyright the way to go? More importantly, is something like this able to be copyrighted?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

You are dealing with a potential "patent" and it is questionable. While this idea might not be on the market, it doesn't mean you can preclude others from doing so. Is it sufficiently novel? Chances are that something simple won't qualify and wouldn't make sense to provide protection but that's not to say that what you're doing might not qualify. Here is some information about what it takes to obtain patent protection.

A utility patent (the most popular) requires the following:

- a process or method for producing a useful, concrete, and tangible result (a business strategy, software, e-commerce process)
- a machine (typically with moving parts or circuitry, e.g. a laser printer)
- an article of manufacture (e.g. a capacitor, a bicycle tire)
- a composition of matter (e.g. chemical, shampoo), or
- an improvement of an invention that fits within one of the above categories.


The invention must also have:

- some usefulness (utility), no matter how trivial
- be novel (different from previous inventions in some material way)
- be nonobvious (a surprising and significant development) to somebody who understands the technical field of the invention.

Design patents don't have to have "utility" but they are required to be novel, nonobvious, and nonfunctional, e.g. new shape for a car's headlights, a wine bottle, a slick looking flashlight that doesn't improve the illumination but "looks cool."