Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
lawyer to help you with this process, but the bill should be significantly lower than the bill
for a patent application.
Actually Licensing a Copyright, Patent, or Trademark
The previous discussion of the general types of intellectual property is all well and good,
but if you are reading this topic, you are probably a bit more interested in their application.
Licensing a Copyright
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, copyrights are the type of intellectual property that
most people think of first. Copyrights are easy to get, so almost everyone has some. Also,
because software is protected by copyright, copyright forms the core of the open source
software movement. It is only natural to try and draw parallels when thinking about open
source hardware.
But hardware is different, and not just because it is tangible. Because the core of most
open source hardware projects is some sort of functionality—which is excluded from the
world of copyright—copyright may not actually protect very much of an open source
hardware product.
Of course, this does not mean that nothing in an open source hardware project will be
protectable by copyright. Obviously, any software you include in your project is protect-
able by copyright and should be licensed accordingly. Many (but not necessarily all)
design files will be protectable by copyright as well. Also, in most cases, nonfunctional,
decorative flourishes are exactly the type of thing that is protectable by copyright.
For example, the Evil Mad Scientist Diavolino development board has a cool design
screened onto its backside (
http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/
180-diavolino
)
. That design does not contribute to the actual working of the board; it
would work fine without it. But it is a nice artistic flourish—exactly the type of nonfunc-
tional flourish that is protectable by copyright. In contrast, the mostly functional designs
on the front of the board that identify the pins and various components are much less
likely to be protected by copyright.
Thus the nonfunctional design elements of your project may very well be protected by
copyright and, therefore, licensable under existing open licenses, such as Creative Com-
mons. That protection will not extend to the functional parts of the project, however.
If you are looking for a good rule of thumb about which parts of your project might be
protectable by copyright, ask yourself what would happen if the part in question disap-
peared. If the project still works as expected, the part is probably protected by copyright
(or totally unnecessary and should be removed, but that's an entirely different discussion).
