[C1] COPYRIGHT PRINCIPLE:
Copyright does not subsist in scientific principles or descriptions of an art [C1]
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JUSTICE BRADLEY for the Court:
There is a clear distinction between the book, as such, and the art which it is intended to illustrate. ...
A treatise
on the composition and use of medicines, be they old or new;
on the construction and use of ploughs, or watches, or churns; or
on the mixture and application of colors for painting or dyeing; or
on the mode of drawing lines to produce the effect of perspective,
– would be the subject of copyright;
but no one would contend that the copyright of the treatise would give the exclusive right to the art or manufacture described therein.
The copyright of the book, if not pirated from other works, would be valid without regard to the novelty, or want of novelty, of its subject-matter.
The novelty of the art or thing described or explained has nothing to do with the validity of the copyright.
To give to the author of the book an exclusive property in the art described therein, when no examination of its novelty has ever been officially made, would be a surprise and a fraud upon the public.
That is the province of letters-patent, not of copyright. ...
The difference between the two things, letters-patent and copyright, may be illustrated by reference to the subjects just enumerated.
Take the case of medicines.
Certain mixtures are found to be of great value in the healing art.
If the discoverer writes and publishes a book on the subject (as regular physicians generally do), he gains no exclusive right to the manufacture and sale of the medicine; he gives that to the public.
If he desires to acquire such exclusive right, he must obtain a patent for the mixture as a new art, manufacture, or composition of matter.
He may copyright his book, if he pleases; but that only secures to him the exclusive right of printing and publishing his book.
So of all other inventions or discoveries. ...
The copyright of a work on mathematical science cannot give to the author an exclusive right to the methods of operation which he propounds, or to the diagrams which he employs to explain them, so as to prevent an engineer from using them whenever occasion requires.
The very object of publishing a book on science or the useful arts is to communicate to the world the useful knowledge which it contains.
But this object would be frustrated if the knowledge could not be used without incurring the guilt of piracy of the book.
And where the art it teaches cannot be used without employing the methods and diagrams used to illustrate the book, or such as are similar to them, such methods and diagrams are to be considered as necessary incidents to the art, and given therewith to the public; not given for the purpose of publication in other works explanatory of the art, but for the purpose of practical application.
Recurring to the case before us, we observe that Charles Selden, by his books, explained and described a peculiar system of book-keeping, and illustrated his method by means of ruled lines and blank columns, with proper headings on a page, or on successive pages.
Now, whilst no one has a right to print or publish his book, or any material part thereof, as a book intended to convey instruction in the art, any person may practise and use the art itself which he has described and illustrated therein.
The use of the art is a totally different thing from a publication of the book explaining it.
The copyright of a book on book-keeping cannot secure the exclusive right to make, sell, and use account-books prepared upon the plan set forth in such book.
Whether the art might or might not have been patented, is a question which is not before us.
It was not patented, and is open and free to the use of the public.
And, of course, in using the art, the ruled lines and headings of accounts must necessarily be used as incident to it.
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Source: Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (U.S.: Supreme Court, 1879)
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