Re: Maps

On May 12, 1997, Barbara Gall <bgall[_at_]www.sah.com> wrote:
>
> There is an older Illinois state court case involving Rockford Map
> Company. I apologize for not having the cite. The company created
> a map of farm boundaries, with each farmer's name on his or her farm.
> Rockford Map Co. sued a competitor for copying the map, and the
> competitor claimed that it had created the map from county records.
> Rockford won because it pointed out that the middle initials of the
> listed farmers on BOTH maps were fictitious; when you read them from
> top to bottom, they spelled "Rockford Map Company." Score one for
> smart copyright owners!

Or score one for the monopolizers of uncopyrightable facts. If I recall, the opinion in the Rockford Map case was based heavily on a "sweat of the brow" notion of copyright protection, which was of course later rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in Feist. Rockford's clever plan demonstrates only factual copying; it does not establish copying of protected expression.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Assistant Professor
Whittier Law School
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu Received on Wed May 14 1997 - 00:41:24 GMT